A man has been arrested in Bengaluru for secretly recording and posting videos of women without their consent on Instagram.
The arrest came days after a young woman publicly raised the alarm in a viral Instagram post, tagging the Bengaluru City Police and Cyber Crime authorities.
The identity of the arrested individual has not yet been officially released by the Bengaluru police. However, according to a senior officer from the Bengaluru Cyber Crime unit who spoke to The Times of India on July 9, “The man was using his Instagram page to regularly upload videos of women he filmed without their knowledge on Church Street and nearby areas. He has been taken into custody and is being questioned.”
The man was arrested under charges related to outraging the modesty of women, stalking, and violating privacy under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.
According to the police, he would visit public areas like Church Street, follow women, and record them walking, often zooming in or capturing them in awkward moments. These clips were later posted as Instagram reels without their consent.
One senior official from the Cubbon Park Police Station, who requested anonymity, stated: “His actions clearly fall under non-consensual surveillance. We have recovered his mobile devices and are analyzing the content for further leads.”
The complaint was first raised publicly on Instagram on July 6 by a woman who discovered her own video on the account. In her post, she wrote:
“This person walks around Church Street pretending to film the chaos, but in reality, all they do is follow women and record them without their consent. It happened to me. Just because my account is public doesn’t mean I consent to be filmed publicly. That is not how consent works.”
She added that after reporting the video to Instagram and requesting its removal, nothing was done, and the video remained online. She also claimed to have received vulgar messages from strangers after the video was posted.
Her post has since been shared widely, prompting others to check if they too had appeared in such videos.
The Instagram page, which has now been flagged multiple times, contained dozens of reels of unsuspecting women walking in public. Some looked startled, others seemed unaware they were being filmed. The account framed these videos as candid or artistic street footage, but several users pointed out the pattern of exclusively targeting women.
According to digital rights activist Divya Sreenivasan, “This isn’t street photography. This is targeted harassment disguised as content creation. It’s a violation of basic digital rights and bodily autonomy.”
What’s the Situation Now?
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The Instagram page is currently under investigation and is expected to be taken down permanently.
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Police are examining the full list of videos to identify other victims.
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The suspect remains in custody and will be presented in court later this week.
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Bengaluru Police has not yet issued an official press release, but officers have confirmed the arrest to multiple local outlets.
What’s Been Happening on Instagram?
Wider criticism of Instagram’s parent company, Meta, has grown over their failure to act swiftly on complaints about non-consensual content.
More than 100 people have contacted BBC News in recent weeks, claiming that their accounts were wrongly banned or disabled by Meta, sometimes under accusations of child exploitation. Many users said they were unable to access their personal or business pages, leading to emotional distress and financial losses.
“I’ve lost endless hours of sleep, felt isolated. It’s been horrible, not to mention having an accusation like that over my head,” said one man whose account was only restored after media intervention.
Over 27,000 people have signed a petition demanding accountability from Meta and a more transparent appeals process. Forums on Reddit are also filled with similar cases, raising concerns about the reliability of the platform’s AI-based moderation system.
Meta declined to comment on individual cases but acknowledged that moderation errors do occur.
