Troops getting FB requests from fake ‘stars’

Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 15

Several Indian soldiers have been receiving Facebook “friend requests” from “leading actresses” of Bollywood. More often than not, these accounts of Bollywood actresses are fake and handled from locations as disparate as Pakistan to Europe.

Military commanders are clear that smartphones cannot be banned in the force, but want social media use to be regulated. All commanders have been asked to send down a message to sensitise troops, some of whom are as young as 20 years of age, that friend requests from “film actresses”, unknown women and even those who have a few “mutual friends” have to be avoided.

“Why would a film actress send you a friend request?” is the question that young troops now have to ask themselves, sources say. It’s not just the jawans, even middle-aged officers have been getting “friend requests” from “pretty looking” women. Most of these profiles are fake and even the list of mutual friends could be a bait. “Do not accept any request from a person who you don’t know personally,” said a source.

Recently, a jawan from Rohtak was allegedly lured into lewd talk by a woman whom he had befriended on Facebook. It was a fake account created in the name of a woman from Gujarat. Once trapped, the jawan was asked to send pictures and details of movement of tank regiments. 

In April last year, a middle-level IAF officer was nabbed and handed over to the Delhi Police. He had been honey-trapped. The woman started off with having sex-related chats and then threatened to share information. 

He had accepted a friend request from a woman and a few days later, another woman sent him a friend request. Both requests were accepted and later traced to Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

The IAF officer was made to use a hi-tech platform on which messages get deleted automatically once one logs out from the account. A common password is shared to login by users on both ends. The IAF officer shared a tri-nation exercise involving India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and a para-drop exercise in Trivandrum. 

He was also accused of sharing information on operations like Gagan Shakti, para refresher training, information regarding flypast on January 26 and Beating Retreat.

Honey-trap alert sounded 

• Not only jawans, even middle-aged officers have been receiving “friend requests” from “pretty looking” women on Facebook
• Most accounts are fake and handled either from Pakistan or Europe
• Once honey-trapped, jawans are forced to share crucial details about troop movement and defence installations