A 28-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday afternoon following a rape complaint lodged by a woman he had met through a mobile dating application. A police team picked up the man from Haltu in south Kolkata, a senior officer said.
According to the police, the man, who works in an IT firm, got in touch with the woman after their profiles matched on the mobile dating application. The two started sending messages to each other through the platform before exchanging numbers.
“Finally, the man and the woman decided to meet at a pub on Park Street on Tuesday night. They had dinner before heading to a New Town guest house,” the officer said.
An officer who has read the woman’s complaint said she mentioned that she had passed out at the guest house and realised that she had been raped after she woke up in the morning.
The woman then went to Eco Park police station and lodged a rape complaint. An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate who works for the cyber crime department said people should be cautious about their “matches” on such dating apps.
App users must take care of the amount of information they share on such platforms and who they meet or go out with, he said. Since photographs are available on these mobile apps, along with personal details, there are chances of identity theft as well as blackmail. “We have handled cases where people had their photographs morphed and been blackmailed by online friends,” said the officer. According to him, one should also be wary of fake profiles on such online apps as most of them have been created to dupe people.