As we all plan to begin our usual day on 3rd May 2020, a new revelation unearths exposing Delhi teenage boy’s private chat group on Instagram called ‘Bois Locker Room’ which created a storm on social media platforms.
An Instagram user Niska Nagpal is said to have leaked chats from the group, including obscene images of around 15-16 girls. This time, the said group involved boys aged between 16 to 18 years of age. The chats, as read, gave a disturbing and horrifying picture of the society we live in. These educated men, barely having an age of even being called an adult, shared morphed images of girls between the age of 14 to 16 years and their plans to rape and sexually assault them.
Gang-rape being the hot topic of the group, the boys circulated pictures of random girls commenting on their body parts. Having not being satisfied with what they were doing, the boys, using a photo-sharing group on Snapchat, photoshopped the faces of the girls on nude bodies and circulated and talked about the same amongst themselves.
DCW takes Suo Moto Cognizance
On 4th May 2020, a notice was issued by the Chief of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), Swati Maliwal, to both Delhi Police and Instagram’s Country Head, taking the sou-moto cognizance of the matter and terming the act as illegal, demanded the arrest of the accused.
The notice issued to Instagram’s Country Head sought details about the admin and the members, including their User Ids, IP addresses, Locations, etc. The notice to Delhi Police was to know whether the accused has been arrested and if not, an FIR to be filed for the same.
On the evening of the same day, the Delhi Police Cyber Crime Cell took cognizance of the crime and filed a case against the accused under relevant IT Act and IPC sections.
“This commission has received a number of screenshots related to this group which are extremely objectionable and explicitly mention rape threats to even minor girls. Members of this group also have personal information about these minor girls,”
the DCW’s notice read.
Child rights body NCPCR takes cognizance
Priyank Kanoongo, the chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) said,
“We have taken cognisance of this matter. A detailed report is being prepared regarding this, which will be sent to Instagram soon.”
Ever since the dawn of human civilization, crime has been a baffling issue. There hardly exists any society which is without crime, but, even after such a long period, it is difficult to give a precise definition of what a crime is?
The concept of crime essentially concerns the society and its social policy at a given time, and in society, as competitive as today’s, what a crime today is may become a permissive conduct tomorrow or vice-verse.
As a woman writing this story, I certainly feel that even after years of long battles seen and fought by the women or the whole of the female section of the society, women till date are degraded for being who they are. While creating the world, no comparison was done by the creator but it is the humans, especially few male members of the society, who cannot see women rising to them and beyond their levels.
On one hand, where Goddesses like Durga or Saraswati are worshipped, women, on the other hand, are brutally criticized for being who they are. They are raped, tortured, physically and mentally abused and whatnot.
Looking at this situation it seems that the young men of our society are following the same path.
While there are numerous judgements, legislations, guidelines and amendments to the legislation which aims at deterring the increasing trend of sexual abuse against women and minors in any manner, the focus should also be towards making the provisions relating to social media scrutinization more stringent and accountable. We, as humans, should focus on better scrutiny and ways to monitor and examine the social groups, to get a detailed analysis of the safety of the people, especially women. Lastly, if anyone of you is a member of such “all boys group” and notice something of this sort going on in the group and you choose to stay quiet, it’s time you should introspect yourself since even by staying quiet you have become a complice to the said crime.
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