Bengaluru: A 26-year-old man has been detained for allegedly running an Instagram account that posted videos and photos of women in Bengaluru without their knowledge or consent. The arrest followed a viral Instagram post by a woman who claimed she had been secretly filmed.
The accused, Gurdeep Singh, a hotel management graduate who is currently unemployed, was picked up by police from his home in the KR Puram area, where he lives with his brother. The police took suo moto action after the matter gained traction on social media.
The controversial Instagram account had been uploading videos shot mainly on Church Street — a bustling pedestrian hub in the heart of Bengaluru. The clips featured unsuspecting women walking by, some visibly uncomfortable as they noticed the camera. The account masked these clips as “street chaos” footage while discreetly following and filming women.
The issue came to light when one of the women who appeared in a video posted her own account of the experience on Instagram. She said she had been recorded without her consent and despite reporting the content through Instagram’s tools, the platform failed to take it down.
In her viral post, she wrote:
“This person pretends to capture ‘chaos’ on Church Street but is actually following and filming women. I was filmed without my knowledge, and I’m sure many others don’t even know they’ve been targeted. Just because I have a public profile doesn’t mean I’ve given consent. That’s not how it works.”
She also said the video had led to a barrage of vulgar messages from strangers online.
Police confirmed they are seeking legal channels to compel Meta, Instagram’s parent company, to remove the account, citing limited cooperation from the platform so far.
This case closely follows another incident in June where 27-year-old Diganth from Hassan district was arrested for operating an Instagram page that shared unsolicited footage of women commuting on the Bengaluru Metro. That account, which had over 5,000 followers, was taken down after widespread backlash and a formal complaint.