Instances of unsuspecting girls falling prey to the designs of strangers they meet online are on the rise in A.P.

The recent gang rape of a 16-year-old in Vijayawada is yet another harsh reminder of the dangers of online social networking sites.

The teen, who had befriended a boy through an online mode, soon developed physical intimacy with him. On the fateful day, she went along with her boyfriend, accompanied by another friend. The three partied before she was dropped at a distance from her home in an inebriated condition.

Taking advantage of her state, four youth picked her up, took her to a house and raped her. The accused — Abhishekh, Srikanth, Suneel and Pavan — are in police custody along with the girl’s boyfriend Akhil.

There is no denying that social media has brought new opportunities but it is not without pitfalls. Unsuspecting users getting into trouble has become a regular occurrence.

Act of revenge

A youth posted a picture of a woman on a social media site describing her as a ‘call girl’ after she refused his marriage proposal.

In Visakhapatnam, a 26-year-old was aghast to find videos of her ‘undressing’ on YouTube. She lodged a police complaint saying the person who had uploaded it had been blackmailing her for ‘favours.’ He had threatened to spread the visuals to other networking sites if she did not fall in line. A Police Inspector said the woman and her fiancée had clicked these pictures on their mobile phones and sent them to each other through WhatsApp and email. A probe revealed that the pictures were hacked by an unscrupulous person who started blackmailing the victim. “Every time data is transmitted through Apps or mails, they create a back-up file which can be hacked by a third person,” explained the Inspector.

Alarming pace

In Ongole, a 15-year-old schoolgirl had an affair with a videographer she had befriended on a social media platform with a smartphone gifted by her father on her birthday. The girl eloped with the youth who allegedly confined her in a remote house in Ulavapadu in south Prakasam, and took pictures of her in a compromising position. A team of activists from Childline India Foundation rescued the girl who was pregnant.

The case of another teenage engineering student in Chirala was equally pathetic. She fell in love with an unknown automobile mechanic who first made a wrong call to her.

He then befriended her by allegedly bombarding her with a series of “love” messages on her smartphone through a cross-platform instant messaging application service. She ran away from home with all her jewellery and was rescued in a depressed state by a local NGO. The girl lost her ornaments while frantically searching for her boyfriend, whom she can recognise only through his voice. She soon learnt that he changed his mobile phones frequently to hide his identity.

Alarmed by the rapid pace at which cases relating to cyber crime are landing at police stations, and the new ways criminals have discovered to cheat the gullible, the police are trying to caution women, especially students.

The few cases that are reported are just the tip of the iceberg. Police officials admit that countless instances of people being duped on social media go unreported — due to taboo or guilt.

“Media content, to a large extent, plays the culprit as it leaves negative impressions on the youth, provoking them to commit crime, get addicted to vices and go off-track,” says P. Nirmalamma, an advocate and social activist from Kurnool.

Psychologists say since it is impossible for the law-enforcement to keep a tab on what goes on in the vast online world, parents should monitor their children’s online activities.