A recent case in Bengaluru that can be described, quite chillingly, as a robbery and assault, and involving the dating app, took place when an engineer from Bengaluru was reportedly lured, attacked and extorted by a group of men after being ‘connected’ to a person by way of the Grindr dating app.
The incident is said to have occurred near Yelahanka Police Station a police station whose residents say there's been concern over the hazards of online dating. Trained on and accessed through phone, victim lured through dating app. The victim was alleged to have been using Grindr, a dating app often used by the LGBTQ+ community, for nearly a year and a half.
He just discovered a young man on the app, and they swapped mobile telephone numbers. It was believed that the suspect invited the engineer to meet on May 1, near Palanahalli in Yelahanka.
The victim arrived at the location of the meeting and thought it was a meeting. But once they were there, they turned violent. Allegedly to threaten and maim the victim by a group. Four of these accused, according to police reports, had first forced the victim into a car and then started to threaten him. The attackers reportedly told him that if he didn’t comply, they would publicise his sexual orientation and tarnish his image.
The group then said they had taken his mobile phone and requested his UPI password so they could steal money from his account. When the victim allegedly refused to give his password, the accused allegedly attacked him with a knife. When the attack occurred, investigators think the engineer was injured in his thigh and elsewhere in the body.
Money transferred through UPI
The attackers allegedly immediately logged into the victim's mobile phone and transferred approximately Rs 16,000 to others using UPI transactions. The victim was left unattended in an abandoned area after being left alone and the accused fled the site. Later, the victim phoned a friend, was assisted and went to the hospital.
FIR registered, accused arrested
The FIR was subsequently registered at Yelahanka Police Station. Two accused persons identified as Darshan and Rajesh were arrested by police. They also arrested and placed two young people suspected of being involved in the crime in a juvenile rehabilitation facility.
Staying up to date with similar cases being examined. It appeared during the investigations that the group also targeted more than eight other individuals in a similar method, using a similar form of past criminal activity executed using the dating app.
Investigators have said the accused had targeted victims online intentionally, confined them to lonely and often secluded locations, threatened them and used violence to extort the money from them. Police also confiscated a knife, four mobile phones and a motorcycle that they said they had used at the time of the charges.
Questions about it being safe in the online dating world. For some, the incident led to renewed scrutiny of the risk of dating apps and of connecting with strangers that cannot be found online. Example: Cybercrime specialists and police told us over and over again that: don’t meet strangers in lonely places.
Avoid unexpected people You should contact friends you trust first and see someone else later. Verify identities where appropriate. Don't share sensitive personal or financial information with outsiders. “It’s about further investigation to see if there are other victims in the suspected group,” the authorities said.
In fact, both challenges have been intensified by the increase in criminal activity that has developed in online dating apps a development that has created public concern over using this technology to commit crime.
