A still from the film Sliver

Chandigarh, Aug. 31: You could call it a dirty trick straight out of Sliver, with secret cameras and Peeping Toms.

A home-grown voyeur has been caught trying what dashing building owner William Baldwin did to steamy Sharon Stone in the film, embedding a secret camera in the ceiling of a washroom used by lady paying guests.

Ramneek Sharma, the grandson of former Punjab minister Pandit Mohan Lal, has been arrested for hiding the camera in the attached toilet of a room rented out to two students a few days ago.

The camera is apparently attached to a television in Sharma’s ground-floor room in Chandigarh’s Sector 38.

It was spotted by one of the girls — one is studying French at Panjab University and the other preparing for an international test of English — last night. The girls are from Malerkotla and Kotkapura in Punjab.

“It was fitted in the ceiling and was cleverly hidden. It was only yesterday that I noticed a shiny object on the ceiling. But my friend felt there was nothing wrong. But I looked again and realised there was something definitely wrong,” one said.

The girls then covered the camera lens with cotton before calling up their parents who confronted Sharma and informed police.

The police have conducted a search of the house and recovered two more cameras, apart from the one in the washroom. Sharma’s computer has been seized.

He has been booked under Section 292 A/509 of the IPC, which deals with printing of grossly indecent matter or matter intended for blackmail and with words, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of women.

Sharma, who was granted bail today, has denied installing the cameras to film the girls.

“The cameras were installed about two years ago following a spate of thefts. The bathroom was earlier a storeroom where the camera had been fitted. I simply forgot to remove them,” he said.

The police are not buying the explanation.

“The bathroom does not look as if it has been recently converted. It appears the camera has been there for some time. Many girls have lived in the house earlier and used the same bathroom. We have videotaped the location where the cameras were fitted,” an officer said.