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In connection with a special meet held at the Humsafar Centre to discuss this blackmailing menace, Vikram had posted a mail on gaybombay, telling us to how these guys operate.
From: Vikram
To: <gaybombay@yahoogroups.com>
What the meet is about (and what its not)? : To discuss the
plague of blackmailers and hustlers who are preying on the queer community. Its
specifically looking at people who try to use people's sexuality as a means of
extortion. This meeting is NOT about the rights and wrongs of sex for pay. We're
only if the hustler uses the transaction or just cruising in general as a means
of picking up targets for mugging or blackmail.
What are the cases we're talking about? : The gang that hangs around Churchgate
station trying to pick up guys they can mug in the dark alleys of C & D
roads. The gang that hangs around the walls, looking for foreign gay men who
they can dupe into taking them back to their rooms where they will pretend to be
policemen and try and extort as much as they can from the foreigners. The guy
who both mugged a gay man, and then followed him home and blackmailed him for
three years ultimately taking more than one lakh rupees. The gang who beat up
young gay men at Charni Road, Andheri, Bandra, Khar and so many other places,
stealing their possessions and traumatising them for life. The gang that's now
moved onto the Net, coming up with an efficient way of trapping more young and
closeted gay guys. The gang who... but you can probably fill your own stories
when you come.
Why now? : This problem has existed for years and, its been pointed out, there
are periodic outbursts of indignation from the community, and then we all
subside into apathy again. And I don't think we should underestimate the problem
- its not easy seeing what we can do in such circumstances, so we may very well
end up nowhere again. But I don't think we've ever had an open meeting where we
try to involve as many people as possible, both from within the community and
people outside it, but who might be able to help, and its worth trying.
Also, the problem seems to be on an upswing, perhaps as more blackmailers
realise the potential it offers. As homosexuality becomes more visible, and more
queer people start interacting with each other, there will also be people who
want to take advantage of this. From the stories we are hearing, its evidently
very good business, so we can expect to see more people getting in on it. There
also seems increasing evidence that members of the police might play a part.
Most recently its become clear that blackmailers have started using the
Internet. In the last week alone we have heard of two cases with the same modus
operandi - contacts made on chat, meetings fixed up to exchange porn VCDs, then
when the exchange is happening (near the Dadar station) a so-called plain
clothes policeman comes and grabs both guys and proceeds to extract as much as
possible from the victim (nothing happens to the other guy who is obviously the
decoy).
Some information is available about the people involved in this and hopefully
some of the guys affected by this scam will come to the meetings, so we will
have an immediate opportunity to decide if anything can be done. At the very
least, we can figure out how to publicise cases like this to prevent other
people being trapped.
Why bother? : Some people argue that these attacks mostly target closetted gay
men, and that they succeed simply because these men are too closetted to fight
back. So the solution is to come out, and anyone who doesn't deserves what they
get.
The solution is probably the right one, but it would be callous to write off
everyone who can't take it. Many of the people being targetted are young and
taking their first steps into the gay world. When this happens to them, it
scares them so badly that they may never come out, even if they might have
wanted to. The psychological damage can be severe. These attacks are perhaps the
most direct form of homophobia we encounter and in that alone they are worth
taking up.
There's also one other point. We are often asked by well-meaning people, why we
need to protest for gay rights. They ask, why not just be quiet and lead your
lives in private? These blackmailing attacks seem to me the best response why.
The people these attacks have happened to are often the very ones really willing
to be quiet and non-confrontational - and that is exactly why they are targetted.
And if they want to do something about it, they can't because the police - even
assuming there's no collusion on their part - would say they deserved what they
got because what they were doing was illegal in the first place. The police
might even harass them for that, forgetting that they are the injured party.
More than anything it seems to me these attacks show the need why we have to
fight for decriminalising consensual adult homosexuality, and that's why we need
to record and publicise cases like these.