Thursday, April 02, 2009

Tackling Obscene Crank Callers

photo obscene harassing crank prank callers phone mobile cellphone police complain handling stoppingTring Tring....Tring Tring....Usually, I would have excitedly picked up the phone to speak to the voice on the other end, even if that person was just a wrong number or a telecaller. This time I was terrified.

I recognized the number flashing on my mobile phone screen. It was the number of the same person who had been bothering me over the past few weeks. I had threatened to call the police, but he was quite brash and unconcerned about it. My father had spoken to him, my brother had yelled at him and my boyfriend had threatened him, all to no avail.

I was too scared to pick up the phone. Earlier, when I had answered it, this psycho kept asking me questions in a threatening voice and spooking me out. I had put the phone in silent mode, so that the ringing would not disturb my colleagues in office. I quietly watched the screen light of the phone flash. This psycho crank caller was just not giving up. That evening, he called me fourteen times.


How To Deal With Obscene Psycho Crank Callers

I asked for advice on how to handle and stop these obscene crank phone calls. Most people told me to ignore it, they said the harassing caller would just stop calling after some time.
  • My mother warned me not to call the cops. She said that if a case is filed, it can drag on forever. Also, some psychos just want you to file a case, just so they get a chance to meet you and see you regularly.
  • My friends advised me to change my number, but I did not want to lose all my contacts on my mobile phone.
  • I decided to wait a bit. However, the harassing crank caller simply refused to stop calling me, even after nearly three weeks of ignoring his calls. I was really confused and stressed out.
  • Then my sister encouraged me to call the police, as it was the last and only option available.

The next time the psycho crank caller rang, I answered the phone, but kept silent. There was silence at the other end for around 5 minutes, after which the psycho caller hung up the phone in frustration.


Getting The Police To Help Tackle Harassing Phone Calls


I mustered the courage and dialed 100. The lady at the police call center was very helpful and seemed to have received many calls from stressed out women like me. She gave me a special number of the Delhi Crime Branch - 27894455. This is a 24 hour helpline of a cell specifically constituted to deal with obscene callers who regularly try various numbers to harass women. Women may also forward obscene test messages (SMS) and multimedia messages (MMS) to 9911135446 or email details to acp-sit-dl@nic.in.

With a bit more confidence, I dialled 27894455. A male police officer picked up and I told him about the problem caller. He asked for information such as the phone numbers called from, duration of calls, type of conversation spoken, my reaction to the calls and some personal details.

The Delhi Police officer told me he would call the psycho caller and speak to him. Within 5 minutes, the police officer called back. He told me he had spoken to the psycho caller and told him that stringent action would be taken if he repeated this behavior. The cop also gave me a complaint number and asked me to call back if the psycho caller ever bothered me again.

I am very relieved to say that I didn't have to call Delhi Police Crime Branch again. The best thing about this system is that my identity was kept secret and not revealed to the obscene caller. Also, I did not have to visit the Police Station to file a complaint and answer weird questions about what exactly was said, which would have been quite embarrassing. Learning from this experience, I would advise all women bothered by lewd and obscene calls to use this as the first rather than the last option. It certainly helps avoid a lot of stress and unnecessary bother.

Have you received obscene crank phone calls, text messages or email? How did you handle the situation?

Other Useful Articles

3 comments:

  1. I hope that others in a similar situation will find the information provided here to be a lot of help.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, you may also contact 1091 &
    011-24121234 for any such issues.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You can use Google Voice to block phone calls. You get a GV number which you can use to block calls from unwanted numbers including spam, and forwards all valid calls to any number you have. Right now you can sign up only with an invite. But they will be opening to the public soon, so they say.

    ReplyDelete

We'd love to hear from you. Please post a comment below to let us know what you think!