Cyber crimes grip city life
By Sanjoy Ray
GUWAHATI, Dec 12 Soma Ali and Geetika Barman (names changed), two higher
secondary students of premier college of the city, are passing sleepless nights
these days.
For, the duo, both regular surfers at the popular website Orkut, is getting
numerous phone calls and emails by unknown persons using abusive and derogatory
language.
Little did they realise that this was the outcome of their bid to revive their
relations with old friends through Orkut.
Stunningly, these two girls were projected as sex workers by some anti-social
elements in a couple of community sites including Orkut, making mockery of
the stringent cyber laws.
In fact, this is not a one-off incident in the State where women from Assam are
being projected in poor light. Already facing the wrath of an increasing number
of crimes against them, the fairer sex population in Assam is now being pitted
against this form of harassment in considerable numbers, thanks to the rising
application of the technological boons, which are making fast inroads into the
society.
The Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (Kamrup) recently entertained a
case, where an Assamese housewife complained of a similar telephonic
harassment, after her picture along with other details of her and few other
ladies were pasted in an Orkut profile.
She is now receiving calls from across the world. She initially reported the
incident to the local police station but to no effect, as the police too, by
and large, is ignorant of such forms of crime, informed a senior official of
Criminal Investigation Department while talking to The Assam Tribune.
Women, especially school and college-going girls from Assam, in large numbers
have been projected as sex workers in various community websites such as
Orkut by anti-social elements, which has now created ripples amongst the law
enforcing agencies in the State, conceded the official.
In the capital city itself, girl students of premier college and schools in
Guwahati, according to sources, have reportedly found their pictures introduced
as sex workers along with their phone numbers and other details pasted in the
popular community site Orkut
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID), in the last few months, has come
across a host of such cases and is now initiating efforts to put a curb on them.
These anti-social elements, of course, without the knowledge of the victims
are resorting to such offences in increasing numbers and this crime seemed to
be catching up among youths, who might be doing it for fun, the senior CID
official said.
No doubt, community sites like Orkut have kept a provision for deleting such
account which deals in such abusive affairs but for that the victim is required
to report to the Orkut website, but very few account holders are aware of this
provision, the official divulged.
(The Assam Tribune,13.12.2007
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