A man and his wife were arrested on Wednesday on charges of creating a fake Instagram profile of his former wife and advertising her escort services were available for a price, police said.

The man, who runs a real estate business, and his wife were called to Lalbazar for questioning on Wednesday based on a complaint lodged by his former wife.

The 26-year-old woman had alleged in her complaint that her ex-husband and his current wife had created her fake Instagram profile and posted her photographs without consent. They had given a bank account number and asked people to transfer money into the account for her escort services, she had alleged.

“He had sent friend requests to all my friends on Facebook... he circulated my personal photographs that he had from the days of our marriage,” the woman told Metro on Thursday.

The man had introduced himself as the owner of a movie production house a few years ago, she said in her complaint. He had taken her to an audition for a Bengali movie but it never materialised. He then proposed marriage. After their marriage, she realised he was into real estate business and not movies, she said.

“He took advantage of the fact I was my parents’ only child and that there was no male member in the house after my father’s death. He extracted money from my family and when I protested, he assaulted my mother and me.”

After their separation, he remarried, the police said.

The complainant got to know of the fake account through a friend. Acting on the complaint, officers of cyber police station at Lalbazar tracked down the Internet Protocol address of the device that had been used to create the fake Instagram profile and found it was registered in name of his present wife, an officer said.

“It is apparent the couple had misused the woman’s photographs to portray her as an escort girl who was available for a price. The account number they had mentioned in the profile is directly linked to the accused,” the officer said.

He has several false identities, the police said. He is a resident of Santoshpur while his wife hails from Bonhooghly.

They have been booked under sections of the IT act apart from cheating, forgery for the purpose of harming reputation, outraging a woman’s modesty through words and gestures, stalking, and criminal conspiracy.