Social media under the guise of bringing people together has, in reality, turned us all averse to actual human interaction. And to solve our resulting yearning for companionship, voila, dating apps popped up. A band-aid on an amputation. The same people who go forever without talking to the new tenant next door, find it easier to swipe the profiles of strangers who pop up on their screens.
And after maybe a day or two (if not lesser) of interaction, we set out to meet this random individual. What’s the worse that could happen, we ask ourselves and off we go.
For 29-year-old Dushyant Sharma, the worst of the worst did, in fact, come true. One such date cost him his life and for his family, their son.
The details of his abduction and brutal murder had sent chills down our spines when 27-year-old Priya Seth was arrested in relation to the crime.
Seth, who lured Dushyant under the pretence of a date through a popular dating app, had with the help of her boyfriend Dikshant Kamra (20) and friend Lakshya Walia (21) extorted money from the victim’s family. Fearing being exposed to the police, they had later murdered him and dumped his body in a suitcase near Jaipur.
A recent short documentary made on the trio and the incident, with Priya at the core of it, shows an unsettling side to the frail-looking girl.
Priya claims she and Dikshant had planned the crime together to extort money from someone rich in order to settle his debt of approximately ₹21 Lakh.
The woman who shows a complete lack of remorse throughout the interview is a serial offender. She made her living by running an escort service website.
She has extorted money from almost 1000 men in 8 years, according to her own statement.
But she does not agree with terming her crimes as extortion. On the contrary, she considers it a social service as she believes it taught a lesson to married men who searched for escorts.
Despite Priya having many criminal cases registered in her name already, Investigating officer Jyothi had to produce several shreds of evidence in front of the court to obtain police custody of Seth. Speaking of the problems faced, she says:
“it is not easy to convince someone that the girl is at fault. Everyone believes a girl if she says she has been raped. But if a man complains that a woman is blackmailing him, then it’s very difficult as it is against the norm.”