'Paid followers' on social media: Bollywood, other high-profile personalities on Mumbai police radar

The Mumbai Police has started clamping down on many high-profile personalities, including Bollywood celebrities, builders and sportspersons after it uncovered a racket that helped these people fraudulently increase their followers on social media.

The racket also includes international companies.

Police suspects that this might threaten the law and order situation in the country. An SIT has been constituted by Mumbai Police Commissioner Parambir Singh to probe the entire matter.

This is the first case of its kind in the country.

The racket was uncovered after the Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) of Mumbai Police arrested a man named Abhishek Dinesh Daude in connection with creating fake profiles on social media. A foreign social media marketing company www.followerskart.com where Daude claimed to work is now on police radar.

"We have investigated and found as many as 54 firms involved in this racket. SIT comprising Crime Branch along with Cyber Cell has been formed which will help in investigating this case," Mumbai Joint Commissioner of Police Vinay Kumar Chaubey said.

In the digital world, the more followers on social media, the bigger or more effective a person is considered. This practice has now become a business and big companies hefty amount to such people for gaining more followers.

The scam came to light after Bollywood singer Bhumi Trivedi discovered a fake profile of hers on social media and lodged a complaint with the police. A person had created Bhumi's fake profile on Instagram and chatted with people and kept screenshots of it. The fraudster showed these to others to increase followers. 

In the investigation so far, Mumbai Police have found that as many as 176 high-profile people, including some Bollywood celebrities and sportspersons, allegedly paid money to get followers. 

It may be noted that two approaches are used in fraudulently increasing social media followers. First is manual where a fraudster manually creates fake profiles and the second it a bot where a software code automatically does all the work. 

Police has launched the investigation in the matter.