A Mumbai-based woman said a man posing as a professional offered her Rs 5,000 to show her waist. She didn’t stay silent and brought receipts.

LinkedIn may be a professional network, but for Shubhangi Biswas, a creative freelancer from Mumbai, it turned into the backdrop for an unsolicited, sleazy encounter.

According to her now-viral LinkedIn post, a man named Aashik Nehru from Chennai approached her late at night with a job offer, only to reveal his real motive soon after.

“I’ll pay you Rs 5,000 just show me your waist,” the man told Biswas. She shared a screenshot of his profile, and said, “At first, it sounded like work. But then came the ‘I’ll pay you’ bit, the vague hesitation, and finally, the actual ask. Not a pitch. Not a project. Just money in exchange for my body,” she wrote.

Biswas said this wasn’t an isolated case and called out how women, especially freelancers, are often targeted through fake opportunities and unprofessional DMs.

“People like him count on women being too embarrassed to speak up. But I won’t protect his reputation at the cost of my dignity,” she added.

She concluded her post with a firm message: “To the men who think Rs 5,000 buys silence or submission, get a better script. You’re not the director of my story.”

Take a look at the post here:

In a follow-up post, she shared screenshots of the conversation and disclosed the man’s number. She also revealed he later tried to backtrack, apologising and blaming alcohol, while continuing to send her voice calls and emotionally manipulative messages.

“When you speak up, people say- ‘You must be exaggerating.’ So here’s the proof,” Biswas said.

“He contacted me professionally. Then, late one night, he offered me 5,000 to show my waist. Yes, you read that right. When I called it out, he started begging, sending repeated apologies, blaming alcohol, and trying to emotionally manipulate the situation. From creepy voice calls to fake professionalism, the pattern was clear,” she added.

Biswas said she had recorded one of the calls where he made further inappropriate comments, but couldn’t upload the audio to LinkedIn. Still, she said she had saved it and would use it if necessary.

Many LinkedIn users applauded Biswas for calling out the incident head-on. A section of the internet expressed anger over how platforms meant for work often get misused. Others shared similar experiences of inappropriate messages masked as job opportunities.