A lot of women will tell you that they know when they are being creeped on. Years of men trying to take their photos or videos without consent in public places has resulted in a guard which stays up 24x7 for many.
In recent times thankfully, there has been more conversation around and scrutiny on sexual harassment, making it a tad bit difficult for many men.
It looks like one man in Kerala knew both of these things, and put in a lot of hard work to take photos of women and girls at the Kerala Kalolsavam (school arts festival) being held in Thrissur district without their consent, and get away with it.
Baiju didn’t have a phone in his hands, and yet he was taking upskirt photos of unsuspecting women and girls. He had clearly put some work (and innovation) into being inconspicuous. But all of that hard work could not mask the fact that at the end of the day, Baiju was nothing but a (skilled) creep.
Baiju had managed to get a phone into his slipper.
Visuals show that Baiju did this by cutting a hole on the side of the slipper facing upwards, between his toes and the boundary of the footwear.
In the area between the sole and the upper surface of the slipper, he slipped a phone, which had a camera facing upward through the hole he cut.
And that’s not all, Baiju, also encased his phone in a specially made steel cover to avoid damage if someone stepped on his foot.
With the phone taped inside the slipper, he went through the crowds, trying to take photos of girls and women from below.
And unfortunately for him, vigilant police noticed that he was being shifty – he kept on moving from one place to another and looking at his foot.
“He would just stand in a crowd and try to take videos. Sometimes he would keep the camera on and keep the slipper in a crowd and he would just watch from a distance. I have never seen something like this,” policeman told TNM.
Baiju had also come clearly prepared – he carried another phone with a camera in his pocket so that he could switch the creepcam in case its battery ran out.
However, constant glancing towards his foot, and movements gave him away to the police, who arrested him and uncovered his ingenious device.
While the method itself may seem ingenious, it is not really new.
In 2015, an Indian lawyer in Delhi was arrested for taking upskirt photos of women using a shoe camera in his right foot. A UK businessman was arrested on similar charges and using similar modus operandi last year. There was also a crackdown in 2014 on ‘shoe cameras’ in Japan designed for creeps who wanted to take upskirt photos.
Photos courtesy Manorama Online