Listed as escorts on German site, Hyderabad women go to cops

Shocked and humiliated by calls from men seeking a prostitute, women from Hyderabad have been heading to the police’s cyber crime wing for help.
For representational purposes
For representational purposes

HYDERABAD: Shocked and humiliated by calls from men seeking a prostitute, women from Hyderabad have been heading to the police’s cyber crime wing for help. The reason — their details have been uploaded on an online classifieds website.

These women realise their contact information is on the Germany-headquartered website Locanto.net, under the category ‘women-seeking-men-Hyderabad’, which is often a portal for those seeking sexual pleasures.

The phone numbers are usually put up by men who want to get back at their former partners, Additional DCP (Cyber Crime Police Station — Hyderabad) KCS Raghuvir told The New Indian Express.
As the women keep getting calls from men seeking their ‘services’, they approach the Cyber Crime Police Station for relief.

The police help, but cannot investigate the issue, as no one has registered a case, Raghuvir said. “It is a matter of dignity for the victim. They ask us to get their contact information deleted from the website, and once that’s done, they don’t want their names disclosed,” he explained.

In such cases, the police write to Locanto, asking for those numbers to be deleted from the website, and the operators comply. “It is not possible to take further action against the website; it is based in Germany,” Raghuvir added.

The website has phone numbers of people introducing themselves as “call girls” and “escorts”. These could be the ones the cops get complaints about, or may also belong to people who scam others to the tune of Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000

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The New Indian Express
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