Lucknow, Apr 20 (IANS): Five persons have been held for heckling a woman and her brother. The accused threatened the siblings with dire consequences and fled when the two called the police.

The brother lodged an FIR with the police here on Tuesday.

Police traced the accused from the registration number of the vehicle provided by the complainant and arrested them from near Gomti Nagar railway station.

Those arrested have been identified as Fardeen, Vikas Soni, Pramod Yadav, Shubham Soni and Raju Soni.

Police also seized the vehicle used in the incident and the accused have been booked for rioting, voluntarily causing hurt, rash driving and voyeurism.

According to the FIR, the miscreants were in a four-wheeler and started following the victim and her brother who were on a two-wheeler in Gomti Nagar. They passed lewd remarks and even tried to grab the victim's hand. When the victim's brother objected, the accused started threatening him.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, East Zone, Qasim Abdi said, "Police patrolling is done regularly, and we will take more steps to ensure such things don't happen in future."

It is noteworthy that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has already directed police officials to reactivate the anti-romeo squads and beef up security to check crime against women.