A 21-year-old woman from Nettanige Mudnur in Puttur taluk, Dakshina Kannada has accused a 20-year-old man from Bengaluru, with whom she was in a relationship, of misusing her photo to project her in a wrong light on Instagram.
The woman is a student in a government teachers’ training institute in Kasaragod, Kerala.
In her complaint to the Dakshina Kannada Cyber Economic Narcotic Crime (CEN) police station, she claimed to have come in contact with Upendra, a 20-year-old resident of Singapura in Bengaluru, through Snapchat in 2019. They exchanged photos, messages and would chat on their mobile phones.
She met Upendra when she visited her sister’s house in Bengaluru in May 2020.
Their relationship got strained in 2021, and they stopped interacting with each other.
In May 2022, she claimed, Upendra opened an Instagram account using her name and her photo. He then sent friend requests to several of her contacts, including her brother, which were accepted.
He then used her photo to create a story stating: “Anyone interested in nudes of me, DM me lets have some fun. As always love you, DM meee”.
He created another story stating: “Lets make it more interesting at 1k followers. Just few more members. Everyone will be getting replies. Love you all”, the woman alleged.
The CEN police registered her complaint on August 31 under Section 66 (C) of Information Technology Act. A notice has been served on the accused who has been summoned for questioning. They also requested Meta, which owns Instagram, seeking details of the posts made in the account created by Upendra.
Similar complaints by other persons in the past
In a somewhat similar case, a 35-year-old woman of Kompadavu filed a complaint with Bajpe police in Mangaluru on August 14 accusing her husband, who stays abroad and is separated, of creating an Instagram account in her name and posting her pictures to project her as a woman seeking sexual relationships.
On August 6, a 41-year-old woman filed a complaint with Sullia police accusing her friend Krishna, a resident of Bengaluru, of morphing pictures of hers and her daughter and creating reels on Instagram that project the duo in poor light.
