BENGALURU: Last month, a married couple of 23 years approached the city’s women’s helpline, Vanitha Sahayavani under Parihar for counselling. Problems arose when the 50-year-old government employee set up CCTV cameras outside their home to ensure his wife does not leave the house. According to Aparna Purnesh, a senior counsellor at the Parihar, the woman was not even allowed to buy groceries for the house.
“The man eventually decided to setup cameras inside the house – to which the wife argued with the installation guy. He later installed an app on her phone which would record calls for him to hear. That is when she approached us,” Purnesh explained.
This isn’t a lone case since the helpline sees two-three cases a month of married couples spying on their spouses fearing an extra-marital affair. CCTV cameras aren’t the only way they are doing so. Apps such as AnyDesk and MySMS have also caught the attention of the cybercrime police in the city earlier this year. The apps are used to sync all phone messages and calls to one designated place such as your e-mail. But these apps are now misused by couples for spying on their partners.
According to the cyber crime police, there are more than 50,000 mobile applications that can be used to forward recorded calls and messages to a designated place. “It is up to a person to see whether he/she wants to misuse these apps. We have received several cases of apps being misused to get the bank OTP by strangers. But for these couples cases, it usually gets resolved at local police stations before filing an FIR,” said M Chandrappa, police inspector, CCPS.
Counsellors deem such activities to be mentally harassing for a partner and explain that sometimes, other family members also participate in the same. Another case this year received at the Parihar by a recently-married couple. “Because the in-laws wanted to know what their daughter-in-law was doing when the family was out for work, they set up CCTV cameras inside the house and mobile apps to watch her daily activities,” said Rani Shetty, head of Parihar. The couple had been advised to take a separate home to sort out their issues.
Even in the previously mentioned case, the parihar eventually had to reach out to the couple’s three children. “They too agreed that their father was unnecessarily doubting the mother. So we recommended that the family attend family therapy at NIMHANS since the man was adamant his wife having another affair,” said Purnesh.