Fake social media posts force Kolkata family to issue notice declaring they are not sex workers
They started receiving inappropriate phone calls and messages from unknown numbers on October 3. The next day, the woman shared the entire episode on the Facebook page of Kolkata Police and lodged a complaint with the cyber cell.
A 40-year-old woman from Netajinagar in south Kolkata has filed a complaint with the city cyber cell alleging that some unidentified persons had opened fake accounts on Facebook and two other social networking sites with posts claiming she and her sister-in-law were looking for partners for sex.
According to complaints filed by the woman and her brother, they started receiving inappropriate phone calls and messages from unknown numbers on October 3. The next day, the woman shared the entire episode on the Facebook page of Kolkata Police and lodged a complaint with the cyber cell.
According to the complainant, the post in the fake account read, “Myself TXXXX DXX, I am a screen writer in Tollywood industry. Actually I am facing a problem nowadays with my husband. So I need a partner for a long-time sex and it’s a free service without any charges...”
A picture of the woman was also used with the post with “Meet me” caption. The women’s phone numbers were also mentioned in the posts.
“The phone started ringing incessantly on October 3. The callers were so relentless that for hours I could not use my phone to speak to anyone,” said the woman in her complaint.
Similar phone calls were made to complainant’s 30-year-old brother with the callers claiming that fake accounts were created in the name of his newly-wedded wife too.
The posts on the fake accounts allegedly introduced her as a 20-year-old, willing to sell herself for ₹500. Their address was also given in the post.
The family installed CCTV cameras around their house and issued a notice that there is no sex worker in their house. On October 28 and 29, both the woman and her brother again lodged complaints at the local police station and the headquarters.
On November 22, the family lodged a third complaint which said fake accounts have triggered a stream of visitors to their house, as a result of which the compainant’s 72-year-old father and 63-year-old mother (who is a cardiac patient ) “cannot sleep and are suffering extreme mental pressure.”
“It’s a glaring example of cyber psycho torture that we don’t frequently come across,” said Bivas Chatterjee, special public prosecutor for cyber crime in the state.
