Radhika Pandit’s phone hacker arrested

A 20-year-old PUC dropout has been arrested for allegedly hacking into the SIM card of Sandalwood star Radhika Pandit and sending messages in her name to her colleagues. The accused, Abhishek, a native of Kolar and employed with a call centre in Whitefield, allegedly impersonated the actor’s PA to deactivate her SIM card on the pretext that she has lost her phone and later get a new one.
The actor was told about her colleagues on odd messages like ‘Hi’ originating from her number. She filed a complaint with the police on Friday. On Sunday, police arrested Abhishek. Police said Abhishek earlier worked as a spot boy on a Kannada TV serial set. He managed to get Radhika’s number then.
On July 10, Abhishek gave a call to Radhika’s service provider claiming that he was her secretary and she had lost her cell phone. He asked the provider to block her SIM card. A few days later Abhishek called the service provider and got a new SIM card. Then he got a number of another member of the film fraternity and sent a message, saying that all her (Radhika’s) contacts were lost from the phone and asked for the numbers of their mutual friends. Once he got the numbers of many prominent film personalities, he sent messages and sought some actresses’ numbers.
COPS BAFFLED WITH CASE The city police are baffled by the ease with which Abhishek managed to get Radhika Pandit’s mobile SIM card. DCP (North) Sandeep Patil said this was not a case of cyber crime, but a clear case of impersonation. Cops said they are planning to talk to all mobile phone service providers to streamline the process of deactivating and reactivating SIM cards.