A man was arrested in Chennai for allegedly installing hidden cameras inside an apartment which he had rented to seven women at Adambakkam, The New Indian Express reported. The accused, Sampath Raj or Sanjay is a real estate agent and is not even the original owner of the flat, the police said, according to the report.
He had taken it on rent from another person and posed himself as the house owner in a Facebook page through which he got seven women tenants into the flat where he had planted many hidden cameras, the report said.
As per the report, police said the voice-activated cameras were installed in places including bathrooms of the flat aimed at recording women.
“On Sunday, one of the women grew suspicious after she found that her hairdryer was not working and pulled out the power plug sockets to find a small camera,” said a police officer investigating the case, the report stated.
She had alerted the police and a team conducted checks in the entire house. Much to their shock, police found small cameras kept hidden in many places, including in night lamps in their bedrooms and in the metal towel rods in the bathroom, said a senior police officer, privy to the case, quoted in the report.
Another officer in the Adambakkam police station contradicted saying the cameras were found installed in only three places. The tenants had told police that Sampath used to often visit under the guise of carrying out renovation works in the flat, the report said.
Police are investigating how he operated the cameras. The original owner of the house was a resident of Anna Nagar and from him Sampath had rented the house in September.
“The original owner was assuming that Sampath was staying in the house with his family,” said a police officer, quoted in the report.
But Sampath had posed as the owner of the flat in a Facebook page that is popular among bachelor men and women to find roommates and houses for rents, the report said.
The first woman is said to have moved in October and six others, all of them working in the city, had joined in November. Sampath has been booked under sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000, Prevention of Women Harassement Act besides the IPC sections. Police said he is a BE graduate and his wife and children are residing at Chitlapakkam, the report stated.
