Lawyer held for obscene calls

A practicing lawyer and an Arts graduate has been arrested by the Kandivli Unit of Mumbai Crime Branch for allegedly procuring SIM cards using fraudulent means and making series of obscene calls and SMS to women.

The arrested person has been identified as Omprakash Nandkumar Dubey, 27, who practices at Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Bandra (East).

According to the police, since December 2009, many women and their relatives had been visiting Kandivli residence of one Vijay Vengurlekar, 66, and had been accusing him for allegedly making obscene calls and sending text messages to them.

“Vengurlekar learnt that someone had procured photocopy of the passport of his daughter and got four mobile SIM cards on her name. These calls had also led to misunderstanding among the families of some of the women who had received obscene calls,” said Raghunath Dalvi, a senior police inspector.

He added that, Vengurlekar recently met joint commissioner of police, crime, Himanshu Roy, who then instructed the Kandivli Unit to look into the case. “On keeping the numbers from which the obscene calls were made under surveillance, we traced their location to somewhere near Bandra court. At around 3pm on Monday, a trap was laid following which Dubey was apprehended,” Dalvi said.

The police have recovered two mobile phones and four SIM cards from Dubey. He was produced before the concerned court on Tuesday, following which he was remanded to police custody till May 20.

“Dubey had admitted that he had been making obscene calls,” said Mahesh Tawre, assistant inspector.