Suspect’s links with corporates under lens in call records case

NEW DELHI: On November 17, 2013, west Delhi resident Arpit Sharma,28, was arrested for seeking call data records (CDR) of politicians and businessmen by misusing the email accounts of senior police officers.

One of the CDRs he sought was of then Rajya Sabha leader and present finance minister Arun Jaitley. For his crime, Sharma was sent to prison along with his associates.

The Delhi police then put in place stricter norms for seeking CDRs. That was three years ago.

In 2016, Sharma is in the news again. Only this time, he is Aditya Sharma. Arpit, who changed his name to Aditya, was arrested with his new gang members for the same offence. This time, they were using their contacts in the Uttar Pradesh police, particularly the email address of Kanpur’s senior superintendent of police.

Sharma claimed he served less than 60 days in prison. He was granted bail by a city court in January, 2013. Once out of prison, he tried to live clean – away from the detectives’ circle — and even started a business.

“He severed ties with his associates and started his own business. He invested in a mobile shop and it was doing well initially but he started suffering losses,” said a police officer.

About five months ago, Sharma got married. His wife studied B.Tech in London and works in Gurgaon.

A police officer said: “Sharma’s business flopped and he was suffering losses. But he wanted to show his wife he was doing well... So he published an affidavit, changed his name to Aditya and reunited with his old friend Jaiveer Singh Rathore. ”

Rathorerunsaprivatecablechannel Abhi Tak and Rathore Media and Detective Agency. Rathore and Sharma have registered with the search engine Just Dial and are part of detective Whatsapp groups. This helped him get clients.

Police are probing Sharma’s association with the city’s corporate firms.

UP police constable Narendra, yet to be formally arrested, who got CDRs for the last two years, is being questioned.

Meanwhile, police said BLS Management Solution Pvt Ltd closed their office after the arrest of their senior sales manager Sanjeev Chaudhary.

The company, with help of detectives, allegedly got call details for matrimonial, pre-matrimonial, corporate investigations and spying on rivals of their clients.

Chaudhary told police he was reluctant, but was forced by his directors to get the CDRs. The firm in their official site claims to be registered with Ministry of External Affairs for visa verification.