Telangana: Manager of an OYO Hotel Arrested for Installing Cameras in a Room

Hyderabad: The manager of an OYO hotel was arrested by RGIA police on Wednesday for allegedly installing a spy camera in one of the hotel’s rooms in Shamshabad within the RGIA police station limits.

According to RGIA circle inspector (CI) K. Balaraju, the accused has been identified as Vasi Ganesh, a native of Andhra Pradesh, who often called women to his hotel from websites offering adult partners.

“He is the owner of the hotel too. He installed a camera in one of the rooms. Working on a tip-off and on checking, we found that it was true. We have recovered two mobile phones from his possession,” the CI said.

Speaking of Ganesh’s modus operandi, the CI said, “In his hotel on the Bengaluru-Hyderabad national highway, he would offer rooms to unmarried couples. While making them fill a form in the name of procedures, he would note their numbers down. He would then call them up and threaten them of publicising the videos to extort money from them.”

Although the officer denied claims of a complaint being registered by a couple, sources said that police swung into action after a complaint was registered by a victim couple. A case was registered under section 75 and 77 of the BNS.

However, the rise in crimes related to spy cameras has left many couples and even individuals bothered. Single women are the most likely targets.

On August 21, a case about an Indian doctor capturing thousands of nude images and videos of several women and children in the US came to light. The doctor had reportedly installed hidden cams in his hospital for six years and was doing this for a $2 million dollar bond for committing various sex crimes.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle on how such a situation can be avoided, an official from Rachakonda IT cell said, “These spy cameras are installed in places like switch boards and soap boxes. Some even come with a SIM card, so that the person can watch the happenings live. They are even sold online so openly.”

Cyberabad IT cell inspector Anjaneyulu told Deccan Chronicle, “There is only one way to avoid this situation-if you’re in a room of say a mall or anywhere, switch off all the lights and turn on the flash light. If there’s a camera, it will blink or flash back. That’s when you can immediately report to the police about the issue.”

G. Varalaxmi, founder and president of Heavens Homes Society NGO, had filed a PIL in the High Court seeking serious punishment for those who misuse spy cams in 2017. She had also started the anti-red eye campaign.

She told Deccan Chronicle, “There is no provision for privacy of women in our country. Even if an accused does get arrested in any such case, they would get away with a bail by paying just Rs.5,000, that too on the same day. My PIL is about making it a non-bailable offence.”

The NGO worker said that while the issue is big, a very small police complaint is filed at police stations, mainly due to lack of awareness. “More often than not, the families are unaware and vulnerable. In order to avoid publicity some end up paying the ransom.

In one case, a 60-year-old woman’s video of her changing clothes was recorded. Because of the family wanting it to remain low-key, no police complaint was filed.

Sometimes, in cases when the victim is a single woman, extortionists even kidnap the victim, sexually harass her and rape her. There is sadly no one to stand up for them. They don’t even spare minors. Some of the videos are even uploaded. In some of the missing complaints cases, this is the real story, but never comes out due to public embarrassment. Sadly, a victim is treated like a culprit,” she said.

Speaking of how these cams can be tracked, she said that the most viable way was installing a detection device, costing between Rs.2,500 and Rs.10,000.

“They are only useful for security, but are being sold openly online and offline, which is a real problem. The sales of these spy cams too have increased significantly,” Varalaxmi said.

As part of the anti-red eye movement, Varalaxmi trained somewhere close to 300 NSS students and SHE teams on July 5, along with Hyderabad CP K Sreenivasa Reddy and principal secretary (education) Burra Venkatesh.

“So much work needs to be done from this side too. For most part, SHE teams also need awareness regarding this issue. In many cases, complaints are also not filed due to lack of awareness,” she said.

Meanwhile, efforts to contact the hotel aggregator OYO went in vain.