Not very long ago, India happily rejoiced the birth of first
ever cyber stalking law and anti- voyeurism which was finally re framed to look
after only women. The law is a part of anti-sexual crimes provisions that were
introduced through Verma Committee report after the brutal gang rape in Delhi
last December. But could law really help to stop atrocities against women especially
when the harassment is carried out through digital media? Women victims often compliant of mobile phone harassment.
This includes repeated calls, SMSs, blank calls, threatening calls and even
sending lewd MMSs. Women celebs are the worst targeted victims. Trolls, fans,
men claiming to be exs.....the list is exhausting, but ask the women celebs and
they will positively agree that people belonging to these categories do disturb
them not only through various social networking sites, but also via mobile
phones. Some daring women did face it bravely. The recent one in the list is
Mona of jassi jaisi koi nahi who refused to take the MMS leak incidence lightly.
Hopefully the perpetrator would be nabbed and the link would be deactivated
soon. But it did have a damaging effect already. She is portrayed the way which
she is not actually. Mona represents those women who are regularly targeted for
defamation in the wider platform called World Wide Web. I researched on this
and found out that in India, this is the easiest way to stop a prospective
marriage alliance or a job portfolio for a woman ( I had presented paper on
this in Sweden Criminology Symposium in 2012. The excerpts of my findings are
compiled by Johanna Hagstedt, in “ Risk
behaviours increase exposure to cyber crime” (October 5, 2012) Available @ http://www.criminologysymposium.com/symposium/event-information/2012/archive/news/2012-10-05-risk-behaviours-increase-exposure-to-cyber-crime.html).
Unfortunately not many women prefer to
be as brave as Mona and her predecessors for reporting the crime. The reason is
largely fear of exposure of privacy. We do get to see so many news reports
about rape and acid attack. Defamation through this channel is no less severe. No
woman wants to be a virtual prostitute who would be ‘enjoyed’ by millions. It can
turn women victim suicidal too; the recent example is the suicide of Rehtah
Parsons of Nova Scotia.
But dont
think that this is the only form of victimisation that haunts the women the
most. Bangalore Mirror on April 8, 2013 carried out a brief news which spoke
about stalking of Jaya Bachchan, the effervescent actor of yesteryears and
present day Rajya Sabha MP . The report claimed that Mrs. Bachchan received
continuous calls from a Dubai based number. The man claimed to be an ardent fan
of Mrs. Bachchan. Now note that this news came up after the
much fussed about “anti-rape Bill” (which also included anti-stalking law) was
introduced in India and the police and criminal justice machinery was promising
to take strict action if the crime falls under any of the categories that this
new provision recognises. The report however
claimed that Jaya Bachchan probably could not get instant justice as the
investigation revealed that the call was made from out of India and the local
police could not offer much help(Bangalore Mirror, 8th April). Jaya Bachchan again represents that sect of
women victims who are turned down by the local police due to poor infrastructure
and lack of understanding. The police
need not have looked at the new provision which still awaits to be functional;
but we do have S.66A of the Information Technology Act, which many eminent lawyers
pointed out, has a potential to be used
as an anti –stalking law and which has extra-territorial effect by virtue of
the I.T. Act provisions. In some of my media interviews I did support the existence of S.66A especially for causes of women .I still support it. But it is being misused for wrong reasons. Look at the irony; no one understood the value
of a good law which has been misused and now termed as “draconian law”.However,
Indeed, women need patience for better understanding of the
whole scenario by police and criminal justice machinery. But the waiting time
is painful, disgraceful and dangerous. Let us hope that the waiting period gets
over soon. My salute to you brave women who had endured such humiliation but
still carrying on with life.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog.
If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own
assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “No relief for women from stalking and
morphing” 15th April ,2013,
published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/
