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“Hey! Do you know where Aranya* is based now?” A Facebook message began like any other. Nazma* saw it while sitting in class. She saw and ignored it. The 23-year-old who is an architecture student from Hyderabad was not accustomed to replying to messages from unknown people. However, this message was different – the message sender, a man named Abdul Zeeshan, was asking Nazma about an old friend.
She responded saying she had no information about her. And the conversation for her ended there. But not for Zeeshan.
The sender was Abdul Zeeshan, the same man who had approached her earlier. And this was just the beginning of the ongoing cyber stalking and sexual harassment.
Zeeshan kept badgering her. He started making multiple accounts on Facebook to harass her further. He got hold of her photographs from the internet and started misusing them and blackmailing her. Nazma would diligently keep deleting messages, blocking accounts, changing passwords, but it didn’t stop.
Within a few days, he caught hold of Nazma’s number and the first thing he texted her was, “Send me your nudes and I will stop harassing you.”
Nazma deleted herself from every social media platform that she ever made a profile on. Her only digital footprint now was on Gmail.
After ridding her phone of all the social media applications barring her email, things quieted down for a bit. But it was a lull before the storm.
Zeeshan had hacked into her Google account and pulled out pictures from her cloud. He now had access to every photo that she had ever taken on her Android phone. He used this wealth of information to add more obscenities on each and circulate it on porn websites.
SHE Teams is a division of Telangana Police for the safety and security of women.
She explained the entire situation to them, showed them screenshots, emailed them everything. They heard her out and explained how they did not have the expertise to address such a crime.
Unable to find help even from the authorities, a distraught Nazma decided to leave the country for some time.
With the abuse taking a serious toll on her mental health, Nazma decided to come back to the country again and file an FIR at a cyber crime cell. When she approached the Station In Charge at Hyderabad’s Cyber Crime Cell, he asked Nazma two questions:
1) What is Gmail?
2) Is he your ex-lover?
Nazma came home defeated. The messages stopped for a month, but resumed again.
She is still battling the daily barrage of messages and emails. She has written an email complaint to the commissioner of police as well but no one so far has been able to help her.
Her mental health has taken a toll in the process.
Many victims of cyber crime do not come out in the open and register a complaint. Even if they do, they are often not taken seriously.
We spoke to cyber security expert Rakshit Tandon to find out what a person can do if s/he has faced any form of cyber crime. Here is what he had to say:
Either the police is not equipped to deal with cases of online trolling or they brush it off as a ‘non-crime’. Senior Lawyer Rebecca John, however, believes that they have the wherewithal to make quick amends.
Taking cognisance is the first step towards addressing a crime. If the cops are unable to help women navigate the new forms of crime, how will online spaces be safe for women?
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
Published: 04 Dec 2018,03:04 PM IST