New Delhi: A 30-year-old woman died by suicide in Uttar Pradesh’s Bijnor last week, with her family alleging she was the victim of “digital arrest”, a cyber-fraud where scammers impersonate law enforcement on video calls to intimidate victims into staying online and paying money to avoid fake legal action.
The family said the woman was found hanging from the ceiling fan by her nine-year-old daughter on Tuesday morning, and they conducted her last rites without informing the police.
However, they approached the police when her phone received repeated WhatsApp calls during her funeral preparations, and they found several WhatsApp chats with unknown numbers.
The family contacted one of them and eventually received a call back. It was a video call of a person in uniform, claiming to be from the Mumbai Police crime branch, they said.
“Upon checking her WhatsApp, we discovered multiple unknown numbers, one of which was with a +92 extension. We tried one of the numbers and eventually received a video call. We saw a man in a police uniform, who claimed that he had arrested her younger brother in a smuggling case,” her husband’s nephew told ThePrint.
“But we knew that it was a lie, as her brother was present with us. We suspected he was a fraud. We had heard instances of digital arrests in the news. We suspect that he was doing the same with her,” he added.
Digital arrest is a form of cybercrime in which fraudsters pose as law enforcement officers or personnel from government agencies to intimidate victims through audio and video calls. They then hold the victims hostage and put pressure on them to pay money.
Police said they were investigating the matter.
“The digital arrest angle is an assumption made by the family. But, yes, there was a man who was troubling the woman. We are investigating the matter and can only share the details after completing it,” Bijnor SP Abhishek Jha told ThePrint.
The family also said they found a suicide note in a diary in which she said a man had been blackmailing her for days. She repeatedly apologised to her husband and other family members.
In the suicide letter addressed to her family, including her younger daughter, the woman asked for forgiveness. She also has an 11-year-old daughter.
“Sorry, my dear husband, I love you. I had a lot to tell you. A boy has been troubling me for many days now, and I am being blackmailed. Please forgive me if possible,” she wrote.
“I know that our anniversary is around the corner. Sorry that I can’t be with you. I hope that we are together again in our next life,” she added.
She asked her husband to show the letter to her family. “I wish that even in my next life, I get a mother, father, brother, and sister-in-law like you,” she wrote. “Thank you for giving me so much love. Take care of my mother,” she added.
The family claims they received a voice call from another person who demanded money and threatened to leak what they called “obscene videos”.
“We started getting calls from a person who threatened to release some videos. He has the numbers of around 20 of our family members. He is threatening all of us. I do not know how he could get hold of our numbers,” her husband said.
“He threatened to leak the videos. Obscene videos. I saw some part of it, but I was not able to watch any further,” he added.
The case has drawn attention in the wake of an increasing number of suicides being linked to digital fraud. Victims take to such extreme steps driven by harassment and financial loss.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) latest Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) report, Uttar Pradesh has seen a 12 percent year-on-year increase in suicides.
An Indian Express report based on Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) data says that digital arrest accounted for 8 percent of total cyber-fraud losses last year.
Anmol Kapil is a TPSJ alum, currently interning with ThePrint.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)