Chennai-based Namya Baid was looking for a job. Proficient in French language, she asked her friend in the hospitality industry, to help her out. But when a creep got Namya’s number from a WhatsApp group after her friend posted about her job requirement, he didn’t know what he was in for.
In a viral Facebook post, Namya recounts her interaction with this man and how he attempted to sexually harass her by not only offering her a fake job, but by pretending to be at least two different people.
On January 2, Namya received a call from an unknown number. The man introduced himself and said that he was from Air France and wanted to offer her a permanent position as a French language expert.
“I had said that I was looking for a salary of around Rs 45,000 per month. This man offered me a sum of Rs 70,000 per month. That was the first red flag, because how often does someone simply double your salary without a proper meeting or interview,” Namya tells TNM.
She started recording the calls after that. However, Namya decided to give the offer a chance.
The man told her that there would be five rounds of interview. He asked for the second round over the phone shortly after they spoke for the first time.
When Namya received the call for the second round, it was from the same number. She says that the man on the other end was the same one who had called her first, and did not introduce himself properly.
“He asked me questions like what are my opinions about French films and the sex scenes in them. He asked me if I avoid them or if I like them,” Namya says.
He then asked her about the colour of the clothes she was wearing. He said that he wanted to these details to the person who would be doing the third interview round which would be over video call, so they could verify Namya was the same person.
Namya, who was treading cautiously, decided that they would have to have the video call over WhatsApp and not Skype. “That way I would still have the number of the person and the chat history, even if they blocked me,” she explains.
The third call came some time later the same day from another number. But Namya realised that it was the same man she had spoken to the first two times, because of the voice and because he had the habit of saying ‘hello’ every few minutes.
This is when things got really creepy. “He told me that people here are concerned about how you look and so, I should keep my phone on the table or a higher surface and show him my full profile and height. He asked me to raise my arms. And then he asked me to show my stomach, because he is a doctor,” Namya says, “I told him firmly that I was not comfortable.”
Namya told him to give her an Air France letter and she would get a full body checkup and give her a copy, if required. While he let it go then, the man asked her then to wear a body hugging t-shirt, as she was wearing a kurta. And if that wasn’t creepy enough, he asked her to not wear innerwear so that her “nipple bulge” is visible.
That’s when Namya had had enough, and hung up.
She and her friend, who was in the room with her throughout these interactions, did some research and found out who this man was. “I asked my friend who was posting about my job requirement in WhatsApp groups to check with the admin whose number it was. This man’s name is Deepak, he is a hotel manager in Kerala, and is looking for another job. He’s married, the admin told us,” Namya says.
But Deepak did not stop there either.
When a disturbed Namya confronted him about his attempt to sexually harass her on January 3, the man had the audacity to not only threaten her, but to ask her to ‘prove’ to him that she is a woman.
“If u claim to be women be naked before me, let me confirm ur female (sic),” he told her over WhatsApp.
The screenshots of the conversation were posted by Namya on Facebook. See them here.
Namya was not expecting her post to go viral on social media. But now that it has, she hopes to want other women against such creeps who want to cheat women on false pretexts. “I don’t want anyone to go through this. Please be safe,” she says in her Facebook post.
Read Namya's full Facebook post here.