The Indian state of Goa is a well known holiday destination for both Indians and foreign tourists. It is now learned that the police have arrested a Bachelor of Computer Application dropout named Armaan Mehta who had advertised for a youth party. Yahoo News reported that the accused was not getting much work and as such he decided to create a demand for his services by floating a poster claiming to organize an unclad pool party in Goa.
Arrest
The arrest came on the heels of a police investigation into the circulation of posters advertising the party.
The scam was conceived by the college dropout who was desperate for money. As per the Superintendent of Police, Pankaj Kumar Singh, the accused planned to swindle money from people wanting to attend the party. He was planning to charge a pre-event fee. A number of high-profile criminal cases including that of Baba Ram Rahim have rocked India in the last year.
The accused is from the state of Bihar and had earlier been organizing events and parties in Delhi. As he was not getting much work he hit on this idea to attract the attention of the public. His modus operandi was simple. He created the poster by downloading a few pictures from the internet and then editing them using a mobile app. He had a plan to create a sensation and attract prospective customers.
Probably the accused did not anticipate the response to the advertisement. News 18 has reported that the accused began to receive calls from India and abroad and got panicky and switched off his phone.
The accused
Armaan Mehta age 30, posted two posters advertising his unclad party at Morjim Ashwin Road. The posters went viral on social media as they depicted revealing pictures of women.
The titillating advertisement created an uproar among politicians and residents.
The police constituted a team to investigate the case. The posters contained a mobile number which was continuously switched off. The police team examined leads to New Delhi and Bihar. They went to various parts of the country to track the accused.
Armaan Mehta had told his girlfriend that he was going to Dehradun. It appears the accused panicked after seeing the response to his poster. He has now been arrested and a case under section 67 of the Information Technology Act and section 6 of the Indecent Representation of Women act has been registered by the crime branch.
The poster which went viral on Monday mentioned that there will be 15-20 foreign and more than 10 Indian girls taking part in the proposed party. The Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant assured on Tuesday that the police will soon arrest the accused.
Last word
The Posters created quite a stir in Goa and the Goa Mahila Congress Chief Pratima Coutinho said that the chief minister and tourism minister Manohar Ajgaonkar must immediately intervene and ensure such parties do not take place.
The actual party never took place as the accused had put up the poster only with the idea of getting people to register with money for his personal use. The poster was also vague as it mentioned three roads in the North Goa district where the party was likely to take place but gave no detailed address nor any date. This led the police to conclude that it was a hoax being perpetrated by Armaan Mehta.
