The young man arrested for threatening to rape Virat Kohli’s nine-month-old daughter is an IIT Hyderabad graduate with a history of online trolling under numerous identities, according to the Police. But he was a studious person to his family and friends, a topper preparing his future in the United States.
Ram Nagesh Srinivas Akubathini, 23, is a software engineer who, until a month ago, worked for a popular food delivery app in Bengaluru. He left his work to pursue a master’s degree in the United States.
Following his arrest in Hyderabad on Wednesday, he is currently imprisoned in Mumbai. He planned to attend a US university in a few days, but he hadn’t counted on being apprehended.
A class 10 topper, Ram Nagesh was known to study hard, well into the night.
According to a Telangana police officer, Ram Nagesh’s father works in an ordnance factory at Sanga Reddy in Medak district. His father and a friend have accompanied him to Mumbai.
Ram Nagesh, who reportedly ranked 2367 in the IIT-JEE or all India entrance exam, has a younger brother. The family, described as upper middle class, did not know of his trolling activities, said the police.
They just knew that he was passionate about cricket and had been deeply upset after India’s defeat in the T20 World Cup matches, first to Pakistan and then New Zealand.
His family claims he posted the rape threat “accidentally”. He “must have mistyped after removing his lenses and he immediately deleted the post”, said his father.
When the tweet screenshot went viral and was flagged to the police in Mumbai and Delhi, Ram Nagesh allegedly changed his Twitter handle (@ramanheist) and pretended to be a Pakistani user @criccrazyygirl. But his handle was tracked down by fact-check websites. He also used another handle, @pellikuturuhere, which means “bride” in Telugu and indicated that the twitter handle belonged to a Telugu-speaking person.
Vicious comments had appeared on social media after India’s loss to Pakistan in the T20 World Cup in Dubai on October 24. Virat Kohli was also attacked after he spoke out against the incessant trolling of his teammate, Mohammed Shami, over his religion, after the loss.
“Attacking someone over their religion is the most pathetic thing one can do as a human. That is a very sacred and personal thing. People take out their frustration because they have no understanding of what we do,” Virat Kohli had reporters before the match with New Zealand.
“We’re playing on the field, we’re not a bunch of spineless people on social media. This has become a source of entertainment for some people which is very sad. All this drama created on the outside is based on people’s frustrations. We stand by him 200 per cent. Our brotherhood in the team cannot be shaken,” Virat Kohli had said.
