Being Blackmailed Over an Affair or Photos? What to Do in India, Step by Step

If this is happening to you right now, read the next four lines and then come back for the rest.

Why paying does not work

This is the single most important thing to understand and the hardest to accept in the moment. Paying a blackmailer does two things: it confirms you will pay, and it confirms the material has value. Police cyber cells across India report the same pattern — the demand returns, usually larger, usually within days. The first payment is not the end of the problem; it is the beginning of the relationship.

You are the complainant, not the accused

People in this situation delay reporting because they think they will be in trouble. In India you will not be, and this is worth being precise about:

• Adultery is not a crime. The Supreme Court struck down Section 497 IPC in Joseph Shine v. Union of India (2018). There is no offence for the police to charge you with. See the full explainer.
• Extortion is a crime — Section 308, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
• Criminal intimidation — Section 351, BNS.
• Publishing private images without consent — Section 66E, Information Technology Act, 2000, and Section 67A where the material is sexually explicit.
• Cheating by personation online — Section 66D, IT Act, which covers fake profiles.

Every one of those makes the other person the offender.

The first hour

1. Stop replying. Every response is information — that you are reachable, frightened and engaged.
2. Screenshot everything. The profile, the URL, the full chat including the demand, the payment details they gave, any phone number or UPI ID. Do not delete the conversation. It is your evidence.
3. Do not delete your account on whatever platform this started on. Deleting it destroys the record and does not remove anything they already have.
4. Secure your accounts. Change passwords, enable two-factor authentication, and end every active session on every device.
5. Report on the platform. On this one, report from the profile or the chat. We preserve the account data for a police request and we do not require you to explain why you were here.
6. File a cybercrime complaint. Call 1930 or use cybercrime.gov.in. You get an acknowledgement number. You can file it yourself, online, without going to a station.
7. Tell one person you trust. Isolation is what the blackmailer is relying on.

If the threat is to tell your spouse

The most common form of this, and the hardest. Some honest observations from people who have been through it:

• The threat has power only while the disclosure has not happened. A great many people who disclosed first found the leverage evaporated immediately.
• A blackmailer who has actually contacted a spouse has spent their only asset, and they know it, which is why most never do.
• Whatever you decide about your marriage, decide it yourself rather than letting somebody extort the timing out of you.

That is not easy advice and it is not the same as saying it will be fine. It is saying that the worst outcome of disclosure is usually survivable, and the worst outcome of paying is open-ended.

If images are already circulating

• Report to the platform hosting them. Indian intermediaries must remove non-consensual intimate imagery within 24 hours of a complaint under Rule 3(2)(b) of the IT Rules, 2021.
• Use StopNCII.org, which creates a hash of the image from your own device so participating platforms can block it without you uploading anything.
• Google offers removal of non-consensual explicit imagery from search results.
• The National Commission for Women helpline is 7827170170.

How to avoid the situation entirely

There is exactly one reliable rule: never send an identifiable intimate image to anybody, for any reason. Not to somebody you trust, not to a long-term partner, not after a video call. An image you cannot be identified in cannot be used against you.

Secondary defences that genuinely help: keep conversations on a platform that verifies identity and strips contact details, be suspicious of anyone who moves fast or refuses video, never use your real name, and treat any request for money as the end of the conversation.