Lucknow, Oct 19 (IANS): A Class 10 pass out posing as a techie employed in an MNC used to make friends with schoolgirls on social networking sites only to exploit them later, said police on Thursday.

He has landed in the police net after he allegedly kidnapped a minor girl.

Police said Akash Gupta, 21, was traced and arrested after the father of a 16-year-old girl lodged a kidnapping case.

A team tracked the social media account of the girl and later based on electronic footprints, rescued her and nabbed the accused.

The accused had met the girl on Instagram by posing as techie and was randomly messaging her. The girl got impressed by his ‘credentials’ and made friends with him.

But soon after the accused began harassing the girl. He first demanded to meet her and when the girl refused, he began issuing threats of misusing her photos and videos. The victim girl’s father warned the accused thrice, but it had no impact on him. On October 17 the girl went to meet him and was missing since then. She was kidnapped and raped by the accused.

SHO, Krishna Nagar, Vikram Singh, said the accused had a small catering business which was mostly run by his father and the accused used to support his father.

“He used to lure young girls and those who got swayed away in his trap were exploited,” said Singh. The accused would threaten them by going viral with their photos on social media.

The police official added that the bank account of the accused was being scanned to know whether he had taken money from the victims or not.