Hyderabad: Accepting a request for friendship from total strangers and sharing personal details, even if after months of communication, is fraught with danger. The use of fake profiles to start a friendship online and then building a relationship has become a common means to blackmail.
Police inspector B. Chand Pasha says,“After becoming friends online, people exchange their contact numbers and start sharing personal pictures. Some-times, the girl also sends her private pictures, leaving her vulnerable to blackmail. Other times, when the victim refuses to share her pictures, morphed images, and the threat of uploading them, are used as a lever to threaten her to send her real nude pictures.”
Online stalking, morphed pictures of women and matrimonial cases are the challenges cyber crime fighters face.
More and more people with evil intentions are taking to social media, especially Facebook and WhatsApp, to harass and blackmail their victims and commit fraud. “Crim-inals target girls in the age group of 14 to 15 years by forming a fake profile with their victim’s display images. Using these fake profiles, they collect information from their victim’s friends in order to blackmail them later,” Mr Pasha said.
The personal moments between the victim and the criminal are often used to extort money. Most of the time, the threat of exposure, especially if the victim is married, is enough to force her to yield.
“Some criminals also convince their victims to allow them to activate WhatsApp on their phones. They then harass and extort money from other women,” said police inspector K.V.M. Prasad.
As of November 2017, the number of cases pertaining to online harassment of women was 46 compared to 60 and 137 in the last two years.
As of November 2017, 24 cases of online stalking and 22 cases of uploading fake profiles on social media were reported in Hyderabad region, whereas the number stood at 32 and 61 in 2016 and 61 and 76 in 2015. The police arrested 32 accused in 2017, 30 in 2016 and 55 in 2015.
According to statistics, 687 cyber crimes cases were registered in TS in 2015.
