Two men were allegedly duped and threatened in separate incidents after connecting with individuals through a dating app in Mumbai on New Year’s Eve.
Both victims approached the Powai police, who registered two separate cases against unidentified persons on January 2 under Sections 309(4) (robbery) and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
1st Incident:
In the first case, a 27-year-old man from Bhandup, who had recently moved to Mumbai from Telangana in search of work, filed a complaint with the police. According to the FIR, he had created a profile on Grindr, a dating app widely used by the LGBTQ+ community. In the early hours of December 31, around 12.30 am, he connected with a man who claimed to be an IIT Bombay student living in a hostel.
The two agreed to meet near Amrut Bar on Saki Vihar Road in Powai. The complainant reached the location at about 1.10 am via a bike taxi. The accused then told him that the main gate was inaccessible and led him through a dark, narrow lane near a pipeline. Soon after, two other men approached them and accused the complainant of being a thief.
The three men allegedly grabbed him, searched his pockets, and forced him to open his Google Pay account. When they found the balance to be low, they allegedly pressured him to ask friends for money. The complainant later realised that the person he had met through the app was working with the other two men. A friend of the victim eventually transferred ₹20,000 to a QR code shared by the accused, after which he was released around 4.30 am.
2nd Incident:
the complainant is a machine operator employed at a private firm and resides in Andheri East. On December 31 at around 8.30 pm, he began chatting with a person on Grindr and later spoke to him over a video call. The individual subsequently asked him to meet near Chandivali bus stop.
At approximately 9.30 pm, a man who introduced himself as “Rishikesh” arrived on a motorcycle and took the complainant to an open area behind Hotel Express Inn on Vihar Lake Road. There, three other men aged between 20 and 22 were already present and allegedly began abusing him.
The group allegedly accused him of theft and drug possession and threatened to report him to the police. One of the accused is said to have held a broken beer bottle to the complainant’s stomach and threatened to kill him. The complainant later realised that “Rishikesh” was also part of the group.
The accused reportedly checked his phone and Google Pay account before forcing him to contact relatives and friends for money. An amount of ₹20,000 was eventually transferred online through a mobile scanner, following which he was released around 11.30 pm.
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