Noida: Executive finds her photos used for sex trade

NOIDA: A senior executive with an IT company has alleged that a few of her pictures that she had posted on Instagram recently were used by a gang engaged in sex trade. The gang that was circulating her pictures on Facebook and WhatsApp were demanding anything between Rs 4,000-15,000 in exchange of sexual favours, she told police.
The accused, the 40-year-old woman alleged, created accounts on various social media platforms and uploaded her pictures along with a WhatsApp number.Though the photos were of the woman, the name mentioned along with then was different.

The IT executive said she got to know about the racket sometime last month when a few of her friends shared with her the pictures that were doing the rounds. “That was in September. Some of my friends were shocked to see my pictures on accounts offering sexual favours. There was also a WhatsApp number for clients to reach out to them. The accounts were recent — they had been created last month itself. Though the pictures were mine, the name on them was different,” the mother of two alleged.
The woman asked her friends to dial the WhatsApp number and pose as prospective clients. A man who took the call agreed he could arrange for the women whose photos had been uploaded on the accounts. Asked about the cost, the man said a client had to pay Rs 3,000 as advance, Rs 2,000 for a meeting and Rs 5,000 for “one hour”.
For a “full night”, that gang charged Rs 15,000, with Rs 7,000 as advance.
The man then sent multiple pictures of the IT executive to her friend and claimed she was separated from her husband. All these pictures were from her Instagram account. The accused claimed to be from Chandigarh, and provided a Kotak Mahindra bank account number — 8011235503 — to make the payment. The IFSC code revealed that the bank account had been opened in Noida.
The gang never took normal calls, but always insisted on talking via WhatsApp. Calls on WhatsApp cannot be recorded or tracked.
The techie then visited the Sector 49 police station and lodged a complaint, which was subsequently forwarded to the cyber cell.
“The officers there told me they would forward my complaint to the cyber cell and from there, it would take around 15 days for the complaint to be processed and the accounts blocked. So far, no FIR has been registered,” she said. The woman has deactivated her own Instagram account.
Additional DCP (central Noida) Ankur Aggarwal, who heads the centre for cybercrime investigation, said an FIR would soon be lodged under relevant provisions of the IT Act.