Pune sees rise in cases of extortion targeting gay men

Despite being shaken, Suhas held his ground and said he did not commit any crime. When he threatened to call his friends from a support group, his assailants got unnerved and threw him out of the house. A shaken Suhas called up a friend who came to take him home.

Anil Ukrande from YUTAK Foundation, an LGBT support group, said incidents of violence, threat, and blackmail targeting gay men have been on the rise in the city. Dating apps, he added, are increasingly being used to target members of the gay community.

“However, very few cases are reported to the police, as most victims prefer either to keep silent or give in to the demands,” Ukrande further said.

The activist said the number of crisis calls they received from gay men has more than doubled on a year-to-year basis. “Last year, we received four crisis calls. But this year, we have already got more than 10 such calls,” he said.

Notably, the rise in attempts to extort gay men comes five years after the Supreme Court read down Section 377 which criminalised same-sex relations between consenting adults.

The modus operandi, Ukrande said, was a simple one – trap a potential victim on a dating app, ask him to meet, and then threaten to ‘expose’ him and report him to the police.

“In many cases, the victims are not out to their families and thus are scared. They cough up money when someone says they are from the police and would call their parents,” he added.

Back in April, Ukrande had to intervene when a criminal under the guise of being a policeman tried to extort money from a young gay man near Sangvi Phata.

“I called up the nearest police station and they said they would reach the spot to nab the culprit. As soon as the latter came to know about this, he fled the scene,” he said.

Ukrande and his colleagues have met Pune Joint Commissioner of Police Sandip Karnik to highlight the issue of extortion. The police assured them of action, they said. “But the main problem is that victims are too hesitant to approach the police,” Ukrande concluded.