A day of no food or water, glued chairs, and barred windows: The grim reality of India's fake call centres

Citizen Assistance

Posted by AI on 2025-08-19 10:47:36 | Last Updated by AI on 2025-12-16 01:44:13

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For nearly a week, the victims mostly elderly people in the US were holed up in a dingy building in Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian state of Telangana. They had been shepherded there to answer fake customer service calls, but were now trapped, allegedly by the operators of the sinister operation.

They were denied food and water for a day, and when they demanded to leave, they were threatened with knives and swords, according to a senior Telangana police official, who asked not to be identified. To prevent them from escaping, the windows were screwed shut, and some of the dozens of victims who eventually surrendered their passports were taped to their chairs, the official said.

The harrowing tale of abuse, which unfolded earlier this month and was first reported by The Indian Express, has underscored the callousness of India's fake call centre industry, which is rife with trafficking, extortion, and scams targeting people in the US and other countries.

The incident also highlights the abuse that Indian call centre workers most of them young, migrant men face at the hands of unscrupulous operators who often extract bribes, and threaten them with violence and job loss if they refuse to comply.

On Wednesday, the Hyderabad police cracked down on one such fake call centre, evacuating an eight-story building that housed roughly 70 victims, most of them men.

Police said they were trying to ascertain if there were more such centres operating elsewhere in the city.

An investigation is ongoing, and officials said they had not yet determined whether the latest incident was linked to a similar crackdown in Hyderabad in October 2022, when more than 50 victims were rescued from a fake call centre in the city.

But the experience of those victims offers a window into the abuse and exploitation endured by those who find themselves trapped in India's fake call centre industry and the hurdles they face in escaping retribution, even after being rescued.

When the police rescued the victims in October, they were working in a rundown apartment building, where they lived and worked, taking sales calls for various scams.

Such centres usually target people in the US and other countries, pretending to be officials from the target's country, and scamming them into disclosing private financial information, which is then used to drain their bank accounts.

The October operation was run by one man, identified by police as Mohammad Nisham, who allegedly extorted money from his victims by threatening them with job loss, and demanding bribes from those who wanted to leave.

He also allegedly rented out several rooms in the building where the victims worked and lived, trapping them there.

One of the victims, a man in his early 20s who asked not to be named, said that he saw Nisham brandish a dagger when he threatened to quit.

Another victim said that he was slapped by Nisham when he requested to leave.

After the October rescue operation, most of the victims opted to return to their home states, saying they were fearful of further reprisals if they worked with the police to pursue the case.

Only a handful of victims agreed to file complaints, and the case has since stalled, according to senior police official overseeing the investigation.

"They are all afraid," the official said. "Even those who have provided statements, they have done so only because they fear retaliation if they don't."

In the recent operation this month, the victims more than 40 of whom were Syrian and Palestinian refugees living in the US were forced to hand over their passports and endure strenuous 12-hour workdays, the senior Telangana police official said.

They were made to impersonate government officials from the US and threaten people in America who had allegedly failed to pay tax, the official said.

The victims were paid a fraction of what they were made to extract from their targets, the official said, and were frequently beaten and threatened if they refused to comply.

One of the victims, a Palestinian man, had been held at the call centre for nearly seven months when he managed to alert the US authorities, who in turn informed their Indian counterparts.

When the police arrived to evacuate the building, they were met with resistance from the suspects, who fired at the officers, the senior official said. The officers retaliated and one of the suspects was injured.

The victims were taken to a local hotel, where they were provided meals and medical care, the official said, adding that the suspects were in custody and being questioned.

The fact that some of the victims were refugees and had allegedly been tricked into coming to India with the promise of working in the tech industry may complicate the case, the official said.

Siva Krishna, a police official

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