Mar 01, 2017

Women's rights body asks Facebook to help identify those who threatened to rape student

BYPankaj Mishra

Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal on Tuesday issued notice to Facebook seeking details to identify those who issued rape threats to Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur.
She also asked Facebook to deactivate the accounts from which the threats were issued.
In the notice, Maliwal wrote that Kaur was subjected to “extreme abuse and rape threats” on her Facebook profile.
“The Commission is in receipt of a complaint from her which is self-explanatory and contains relevant screen shots of rape threats and abuse as evidence,” the notice read.
“The Commission is of the view that urgent action needs to be taken against the abusers by Facebook and their social media accounts need to be deactivated immediately.”
Maliwal added that an FIR has already been registered in the matter by Delhi Police after intervention by the DCW.
The DCW also asked the social media site to provide complete contact details, IP addresses and any other information available with it which will help identify the abusers.
It also asked it to submit by March 6 what action it took against the social media accounts of those who abused Kaur.
Daughter of an army officer killed in the Kargil war, the Lady Shri Ram College student received rape and death threats on social media after launching an online campaign against the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

FactorDaily’s journalism is produced by some of the best brains in the story-telling business. If you like our body of work – deep reportage, domain specialist write-ups, data stories, podcasts and the like – consider supporting the FactorDaily journey.

Support FactorDaily

Pankaj Mishra is a writer of FactorDaily.