A woman journalist of The Quint has been getting rape and murder threats online since 14 September. Her crime? She had uploaded a video criticising the sexist and abusive overtones of the rap song ‘Bol Na Aunty Au Kya’ by ‘rapper’ Om Prakash Mishra. The distasteful song gained new-found fame after an event was organised at Connaught Place, encouraging boys to gather and scream ‘Bol Na Aunty Au Kya’.
The video was taken down due to a copyright issue, and not through any action The Quint had taken. Yet, angry fans targeted the journalist with rape, death and abusive threats, proving the point that the song and its followers do endorse rape culture.
The Quint has filed a complaint with the Cyber Cell of the Noida police to apprehend the individuals sending rape and death threats to Deeksha Sharma and other Quint employees. It has also written to the Uttar Pradesh and Delhi chief ministers along with the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Smriti Irani, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik.
We request you to act promptly and ensure that all the concerned law enforcement authorities take the strictest and swiftest measures aimed at apprehending those sending rape threats and death threats to Deeksha and other Quint employees. Furthermore, we request that Deeksha’s personal safety be prioritised and all measures taken to ensure the same. The authorities must also ensure that the individuals who attempted to breach The Quint’s servers and Content Management System (CMS) software are apprehended.Excerpt from The Quint’s letter
On the directions of Om Prakash Mishra, trolls raided The Quint Neon page to “teach us a lesson”, for our opinions against the song’s celebratory tone of rape and sexual abuse. A page called MemeMandir even went on to organise a similar event outside our office to intimidate and scare our organisation.
Following this, The Quint registered a complaint with the Cyber Cell Noida police. We have also requested the police to make all possible security arrangements for our journalist
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