THE CITIZEN BUREAU Wednesday, July 29, 2015
CHANDIGARH: For Shalini Kashyap, a harmless consent to get her picture clicked for a feature story in a prestigious English daily, has turned out to be a nightmarish experience. Her ordeal is actually a grim pointer to the invasion of privacy of women in cyber space and abuse while cyber laws and their implementing agencies prove to be ineffective.
Six months of ceaseless efforts to get her privacy back have now brought her back to square one.
Shalini’s ordeal began when she was told by a friend in February 2015 that her picture had been lifted from the daily’s e-paper and was being used for a campaign of the Samajwadi Party on both facebook and twitter. The posting of the picture had drawn a lot many comments, less on the campaign but more on the woman.
The links are as follows: https://twitter.com/Jal_Kukdi/status/562312140350951424
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153119896474224&id=622319223&set=a.10150462471879224.423419.622319223&refid=13
It was embarrassing and disgusting to see lewd comments against my picture. I felt traumatized,” she said. As if this was not enough, she found to her dismay some time later that the very same picture had once again gone viral on a property selling website drawing more comments. “ I felt like an object being used to lure customers,” she told The Citizen.
This led Shalini, a young lawyer, to approach the Cyber Cell of Chandigarh police with the plea that action is taken to get her picture removed from the websites and also against those impinging on her privacy.
Ever since then, the result has come to a naught. “An initial report by the investigating officer was a convoluted one that aimed at closure of the case with the comment that the matter is civil in nature. How can posting of lewd comments and hurting the sensibilities of a woman be dismissed as a civil matter,” she said. She followed up the matter at the top level of the police which led to the Cyber Cell officials being told to rewrite the report.
“What I seek is that the pictures be removed. It would put an end to the stress that I have been bearing,” she said.
The failure of the law enforcing authorities to get this done raises questions about the very purpose of setting up of cyber crime cells and their effectiveness. It also has an angle of copyrights of newspapers being violated with impunity. She dreads opening the links fearing that there would be more comments traumatizing her further.
“I am sure that there are many women like me being abused on the social networking sites. Legal redressal must be provided to them,” she said.
Another round to the Cyber Cell on Monday was futile as the official in-charge there told her that she would have to start off with a fresh application.
She is now planning to take up the matter at other forums besides taking a legal recourse.
Six months of ceaseless efforts to get her privacy back have now brought her back to square one.
Shalini’s ordeal began when she was told by a friend in February 2015 that her picture had been lifted from the daily’s e-paper and was being used for a campaign of the Samajwadi Party on both facebook and twitter. The posting of the picture had drawn a lot many comments, less on the campaign but more on the woman.
The links are as follows: https://twitter.com/Jal_Kukdi/status/562312140350951424
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153119896474224&id=622319223&set=a.10150462471879224.423419.622319223&refid=13
It was embarrassing and disgusting to see lewd comments against my picture. I felt traumatized,” she said. As if this was not enough, she found to her dismay some time later that the very same picture had once again gone viral on a property selling website drawing more comments. “ I felt like an object being used to lure customers,” she told The Citizen.
This led Shalini, a young lawyer, to approach the Cyber Cell of Chandigarh police with the plea that action is taken to get her picture removed from the websites and also against those impinging on her privacy.
Ever since then, the result has come to a naught. “An initial report by the investigating officer was a convoluted one that aimed at closure of the case with the comment that the matter is civil in nature. How can posting of lewd comments and hurting the sensibilities of a woman be dismissed as a civil matter,” she said. She followed up the matter at the top level of the police which led to the Cyber Cell officials being told to rewrite the report.
“What I seek is that the pictures be removed. It would put an end to the stress that I have been bearing,” she said.
The failure of the law enforcing authorities to get this done raises questions about the very purpose of setting up of cyber crime cells and their effectiveness. It also has an angle of copyrights of newspapers being violated with impunity. She dreads opening the links fearing that there would be more comments traumatizing her further.
“I am sure that there are many women like me being abused on the social networking sites. Legal redressal must be provided to them,” she said.
Another round to the Cyber Cell on Monday was futile as the official in-charge there told her that she would have to start off with a fresh application.
She is now planning to take up the matter at other forums besides taking a legal recourse.
