Freedom 251 smartphone founder among three held for threatening rape victim

PTI, Oct 10, 2021, 8:09 AM IST

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New Delhi: Three men, including the maker of Freedom 251 that was touted as the world’s cheapest smartphone, were arrested for allegedly threatening a rape victim for a year in Dwarka, police said on Saturday.

The accused were identified as Sumit Yadav, Vinit Kumar, and Mohit Goel, they said.

According to police, Goel, who is a native of Shamli, had founded Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd and launched smartphones at cheaper rates under the Government of India’s Digital India Programme, and these phones were named Freedom 251.

Goel was previously involved in 48 cases of fraud and was also arrested and later released on bail, police said.

Police said the men wanted to take revenge on the rape accused and they threatened the survivor allegedly by posing as the rapist.

The case was transferred to Delhi Police’s Crime Branch unit in December last year on the directions of the Supreme Court.

The matter came to light in August 2020, after a woman who was allegedly raped by a man in Dwarka approached police with a complaint alleging that the accused was threatening her of dire consequences, a senior police officer said.

The rape accused who was identified as Vikas Mittal was also arrested from IGI airport last year but the victim was still getting threats from unidentified people, the officer said.

A month later, the victim was threatened by unidentified people near Civil Lines metro station, he said.

Police said that based on the fresh threat, a case was filed with the help of an eyewitness who was also targeted and attacked later.

Later, Supreme Court transferred the case to the crime branch and directed the police to nab the culprits who were still threatening the woman and the eyewitness — who was Sumit Yadav.

Based on the threat calls, police said they managed to identify the callers but they kept changing their locations.

The first accused, Kumar, was arrested from Gurgaon. He confessed to having harassed the victim and disclosed to have been working with Yadav and Goel, said the senior police officer.

Based on his interrogation, Goel was nabbed from Noida and Yadav from Chandigarh, he said.

Interrogation revealed that Goel is arrested accused Mittal’s brother-in-law and had a business dispute with him. To take revenge on him, he planned to get him arrested and started threatening the rape victim by posing as Mittal, the officer said.

His associates even took a flight to Ujjain to keep track of Mittal and after he got arrested, they started threatening the woman, he said.

“During interrogation, accused Goel told police that he suspected Mittal behind his previous arrests and wanted to take revenge. So hatched a conspiracy and roped in his employees Yadav and Kumar,” the officer added.