Using fake profiles on the social media platform Instagram, a gang of unidentified persons allegedly secured the WhatsApp numbers of several girl students from the rural areas of Kozhikode district and have been using them to spread obscene content.
Many students in high school and higher secondary classes were sent pornographic videos and obscene messages from phone numbers registered in other countries. The parents of the students, many of them from a local school near Mukkom, have approached the police with screenshots of the messages.
“The fraudsters secured my WhatsApp number by sending messages to one of my Instagram friends using a fake profile they created with my photographs. Many students exchanged the numbers of their friends with the fake account holders unaware of the trickery,” said a Class X girl, who approached the police for action. She said they also threatened to upload morphed images of the girls on various social media pages.
The students said the fraudsters spoke in Malayalam. The suspects also allegedly recorded video calls and threatened to upload them online.
A student from Mukkom said a person who contacted her pretended to be an officer of the cyber cell and spoke of the department’s plan to launch a girls’ security project with their photographs. “After securing the photo, the sender threatened to upload a morphed photo on social media,” she said.
The cyber cell sources said investigation was under way to track the fake profiles and the source of video and voice messages. Students with social media accounts had been asked to secure their accounts with strong passwords and minimal photographs, they said.
