India is a hub of internet users. More than 900 million people in India have access to internet. Most of them also have their social media accounts, but are totally unaware of the increasing menace to their privacy in this online world.

As per the 'Crime in India 2022' annual report released by the National Crime Records Bureau(NCRB), India has recorded a total of 65,893 cyber-crime cases in the year 2022 which marks a 24.38 percent spike from the 52,974 cases registered in the year 2021. Among them, online frauds, extortions and sexual exploitations formed a bulk of these cases.1

Introduction
Unfortunately, our country, India is regarded as the sextortion capital of the world as it witnesses more than 500 cases of sextortion daily.2

However, the term sextortion is nowhere explicitly mentioned or defined in any criminal law, but has grabbed the eyeballs of the law-enforcing agencies in recent times.

But the primary question still remains the same, i.e., What exactly is sextortion? In cyber space, sextortion is an online malicious practice, wherein a cyber-crook attempts to extract money or obtain other sexual favours from an innocent by threatening him/her to upload his/her sexually compromising information like naked photographs or nude videos on various social networking sites to disseminate them to the public at large or to share them with his/her known ones. Sextortion can be committed both against males as well as females, even though a majority of the victims, who fall prey to these online predators, are mostly males.

Modus Operandi
Sextortion, in the cyber world, is spreading like an Amoeba, constantly stretching its tentacles to grasp as many number of naive people as possible. It is continuously mutating and evolving its modus operandi to deceive credulous people.

After weeks or sometimes even months of digital inspection, the sextortionists finally identify their potential targets and garner relevant information about them. Thereafter friend requests are sent from some fake but fascinating profiles to their gullible targets on different dating apps and matrimonial websites. The cyber culprits then employ psychological tricks to manipulate the minds of victims and persuade them to indulge in sexually oriented conversations.

Subsequently, these fraudsters lure and induce their innocent targets to share their intimate images with them or to engage in nude video calls with them so that they could record them, using inbuilt screen recording applications.

These recorded obscene clips are then used as tools of traumatization to blackmail the victims by intimidating them to post their private pictures or indecent videos in the public domain or to share those with their family and friends. Consequently, the entrapped victims, out of the fear of sheer embarrassment and humiliation in the society, either decide to commit suicide or succumb to the monetary demands of the sextortionists.

However, it is not necessary that sextortion is always committed by an anonymous perpetrator, i.e., a new variant of this cyber offence has emerged which can be committed even by a person known to the victim and with whom the victim has already had a consensual physical relationship at one point of time in his/her life. Such a person covertly obtains the personal, nude or semi-nude pictures/videos of the victim, store and save them for future, and later, when their relationship ends on a bad note, use them as an instrument to stigmatize and extort money or other favours from the victim.

Leading Cases
The online scam of sextortion is expeditiously hunting and feeding on a large number of people, especially the youngsters and those who are in their mid 40s and 50s, struggling against sexual monotony in their lives.

In a tragic case of Bengaluru, in 2021, a 26 year old MBA graduate, namely B.S.Avinash, was enticed to pose nude in a video call with a phoney profile, created in the name of Rekha Sharma, which was recorded and later used to mortify him to obtain financial favours from him. Initially, Avinash even paid an amount of ₹36,000, but subsequently when he failed to fulfil the further ransom demands, he, in the fear of shame, committed suicide by hanging himself in order to escape from that sextortion syndicate forever.

In the most recent case of Soukin v. The NCT State New Delhi 3 which was decided on 24 April,2024, the Delhi High Court denied the grant of anticipatory bail to the applicant and observed that sextortion is a significant social hazard which amounts to the profound violation of a person's privacy. Besides, Justice Amit Mahajan even went up to the extent of saying that this scandal not only undermines an individual's dignity but also offers some serious challenges to the law-enforcing authorities owing to its 'clandestine and cross-jurisdictional nature.'4

Legal Remedies
If you are someone who has been entangled in this web of sextortion, then the first thing which you need to do is not to panic and be pragmatic in your approach to handle such troublesome situation.
Do not forget to take a screenshot of the alleged profile.

Along with all the documentary evidence collected like the screenshots, bank transaction statements(if any), etc., reach out to your nearest police station to lodge an FIR under relevant sections, and the concerned station shall then forward the case to its cyber crime cell for further investigation.

We should be grateful to our visionary legislators who, in the advent of the 21st century, perceived the perils posed by the technological advancements and accordingly enacted the Information Technology (IT) Act in 2000 to deal with a wide variety of cyber crime cases.

Section 66E of the Information Technology Act(2000) makes it punishable for a person, who intentionally or knowingly captures and publishes or transmits electronically the image of the private area of an individual (which may be his/her genitals, buttocks or breast), without his/her consent, thereby infringing his/her privacy, with imprisonment for a term which may extend up to 3 years or with fine of not more than two lakh rupees or with both.

Section 67A of the Information Technology Act(2000) makes it punishable for a person, who publishes or transmits any sexually explicit material pertinent to an individual in any electronic form, with imprisonment for a term extending up to 5 years and with fine not exceeding ten lakh rupees, and on a second or subsequent conviction, with imprisonment for a term extending up to 7 years along with fine of not more than ten lakh rupees.
Sextortion, in the garb of Voyeurism, attracts Section 77 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which corresponds to Section 354C of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. However, it is not a gender neutral provision as it recognises only female victims, who could be targeted by some online perverts.

Section 77 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita(2023) makes it punishable for a person, who views or records the pictures of a woman, while she is indulged in a private act (which includes the woman using a washroom or the exposure of victim's genitals, buttocks or breasts either fully or covered in undergarments) in such circumstances under which she would reasonably expect privacy or shares such intimate images with a third party without her consent, with imprisonment for a term of not less than 1 year but not more than 3 years along with fine, and on a second or subsequent conviction, with imprisonment for a term of not less than 3 years but not more than 7 years along with fine.

Conclusion
In a nutshell, it can be concluded that the best way to defeat this evil is to create an atmosphere of cyber-awareness and to sensitize the people, especially the young generations, to the mental agony and emotional trauma of the victims of sextortion.

One should not blindly keep on accepting all the friend requests sent by random and recently made profiles. One should be indoctrinated not to engage in lewd video calls ever. If the person on the other side of an electronic communication seems to be in a hurry to develop intimacy with you, then it shall act as a red flag for you. You should not permit anyone to get access to your personal pictures, even if you are well-acquainted with that person as such salacious data can be misused later, thereby endangering your social reputation. If you are invited to join a nude video call or asked to expose your private parts, then it is a cause of alarm and you should act prudently with utmost care and caution.

Therefore, always think twice before you bare it all.

References:

• https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/ncrbs-crime-in-india-2022-report
• https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/india-becoming-sextortion-capital-of-the-world/
• 2024 SCC Online Del 2986
• https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/2024/05/02/sextortion-represents-profound-violation-of-privacy-is-social-menace-dhc-legal-news/

Written By: Shubham Singh, student of LL.B.(Hons.) at Banaras Hindu University