Mumbai: 

Gross: Phone numbers were scrawled all over this PCO at Churchgate. Pic/ Vedika Tripathi

Seema Chauhan (45, name changed), a housewife from Kalyan, has been getting at least 20 obscene calls a day from strangers over the last one week. She finally swallowed her bile and asked one of the sickos where he got her number.

"It was disgusting spending even a moment talking to him, but I had to know. He said my mobile number had been written with the words 'free sex' on a PCO in Churchgate. I haven't told my family about it yet," said Chauhan.

In fact, this is the second time that she has received obscene calls.

"Earlier, someone had written my number at CST and I used to get obscene calls every day. It was terribly embarrassing to tell my 18-year-old son about it, but he was very concerned and went to CST and got it erased," she added and said, "I still have no idea how my number got there."

Chauhan is not alone. There are hundreds of numbers scrawled on PCOs and trains conjoined with words like prostitute, free sex, and other unmentionables.

A 19-year-old student from Churchgate said she started getting these calls since last week. "I have applied for a new number. I keep my phone off generally, especially after 10 pm, which is when I get the most calls." She suggested the numbers may have been written by spurned lovers.

GRP Commissioner A K Sharma admitted the problem existed, "I have received lots of complaints from women saying their numbers were written inside the compartment. This is a serious issue and I will make sure that we trap the miscreants," he said.

Shyam Sunder Gupta, CPRO, Western Railway, said, "I will inform authorities and also get the numbers erased."

And one last irony - even men have their numbers on PCOs. An executive who gets more than 10 calls every day says, "I switch off my mobile after 9 pm. I generally get blank calls because the men hang up when they hear it's a man at the other end."