04-12-2019, 22:00:00

The first video made its appearance on the internet, propelled to highly viewed portals all of a sudden. Within hours, it went viral on all major social media platforms and was being shared on public forums and private chat messages.

It was a black-and-white video of a young woman in blindfold. The woman was unconscious when the video started, sitting in a chair, tied with chains, her head lolling backwards. There were signs of wounds on her forehead, as if she had fallen headlong multiple times. As the video progressed into a few seconds, the woman regained her senses. She struggled to tilt her head forward, moaning in pain. Consciousness dawned in her and she realized she was tied down, blinded with the fold of cloth on her eyes. There was a failed attempt of struggle to free herself.

“Who’s there?” she asked, stopping her movements and trying to focus on the sounds penetrating the silence surrounding her.

There was an absolute silence. The woman tilted her face forward, her lips quivering, trying to get at least one clue that she is not alone. Her breath became slow and silent as well, out of fear that the sound of her breathing might overpower someone’s voice or sigh.

“Anyone there?” she asked again, raising her voice.

“Yes,” a deep voice sounded from behind the camera, calm and pleasant, as if he were greeting her.

The girl froze.

“It’s you, right?” she asked. Her mouth was set tightly.

“Yes.”

“What did you do?” she asked. With her face half closed off with the blindfold, it wasn’t evident if it was fear or anger that dominated her. Her voice didn’t betray her either.

“I just brought you in safely.”

The girl struggled vehemently to free herself. It didn’t work. As the minutes of failure exhausted her, she stopped, panting out of both tiredness and anxiety.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“Someplace safe. You can’t get kidnapped from here.” There was sarcasm in his voice.

“Are you kidding me? You call this confinement a safe measure? You fool!”

There was a slur of swearing at the invisible voice.

As silence ensued again, the voice spoke, “It’s ok. We’ll see if this is safe for you ornot.”

The video ended there.

There were divided opinions about the video on the online and offline platforms. A lot of public opinions centred around the assumption that it was a prank video uploaded just to get viral views or to fool everyone. Some genuinely worried about the woman, fearing the possibility that she might be tortured, raped or murdered, considering the worst-case scenario that she might not be the only woman suffering, given the increase in the number of women being abducted for trafficking.

Police weren’t much bothered about it, given that there was no official complaint filed about any woman being abducted or any incident of violence similar to the one recorded in the video brought to their attention. They stayed on the shores of the online discussion, gauging the seriousness of the situation.

A few hours after the video became a sensation, the public opinion shifted to seeking answers and clarification from the police regarding the validity of the video. As the Cyber Police Investigations team started looking into the authenticity of the video, things became bizarre. The origin of the video was untraceable, the IP address of the system that uploaded the video kept changing and the servers were based out of the country.

Slowly, the police started doubting if the video was a real one, that there was a young woman out somewhere, tied and trapped. They gave a two-line-statement to the press: “We are investigating the authenticity of the video and nothing seems clear right now. If anyone recognizes the woman or the voice of the man in the video, please inform us.”