CHENNAI: A 29-year-old man, who allegedly leaked an obscene video of a woman because her parents refused to get them married off, was on Wednesday arrested by an all-women police. The accused has been identified as M Mohammed Hassain (30) of Otteri, who is working with a courier service in Pudupet.
Police said that Hassain had been engaged to a 22-year-old woman since 2019 and they were supposed to get married a few months later. Recently, her father, who was suspicious of Hassain’s behaviour, stopped the wedding. “When the duo were in a relationship, Hassain had recorded video calls. Agitated after marriage was stopped, Hassain leaked the videos to his friends and posted a photo of them together on social media. He also shared a link of the same with the girl’s brother,” said the police.
On coming to know about it, the girl informed her father and a complaint was lodged. The accused was arrested and remanded to judicial custody, under section 67 of the I-T Act (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit content) and section 4 of the TN Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act.
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Acts like these are widely reported across the world, which derived the term ‘revenge porn’, where one uploads confidentially shared images and/or videos with a motive to defame the character.In March 2018, in the case of State of West Bengal vs Animesh Boxi, the Sessions court in Tamluk, West Bengal, sentenced a man to five years imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 9,000, for uploading private and objectionable pictures of a girl without her consent. Interestingly, during the judgment, the court even directed the State to treat the victim as a rape survivor and to provide her appropriate compensation.
In the aforementioned case, the accused was convicted under sections 354, 354A, 354C and 509 of the IPC, along with sections 66E, 66C, 67 and 67A of the I-T Act, which led to nine-year imprisonment. However, in Hassain’s case, the city police has registered only two sections of different acts. In several other incidents in the past, too, the police had either registered cases only under sections pertaining to the I-T or the IPC Act.
Speaking to Express, N Lalitha, an advovate at the Madras High Court, said registering cases under several sections will attract many years of imprisonment. “Moreover, section 354, which provides penalty for outraging the modesty of women, will ensure a longer jail sentence. Apart from this, convicting the accused as soon as possible and delivering a strong opposition during his bail petition will increase the damage to the accused,” said Lalitha.
In several cases, Lalitha said that she had witnessed the accused being granted bail within a few months since either the arrest and conviction was delayed or the prosecution did not deliver a sturdy argument during the bail hearing. Lalitha added that sometimes the victim is subjected to harassment in police stations as well. She said that the police should also consider how it’s a betrayal in a confidant.
Vijayalakshmi Devarajan, activist and one of the top 100 women achievers in 2016, spoke about the aftermath of such incidents. “We have spoken to hundreds of girls and women and warned them. But no one understands the pain unless they have experienced it. Despite several warnings, women share intimate videos and later when they realise the relationship won’t work, they regret,” she said.
Speaking about another woman who was a victim several years ago, she said the mental trauma is enormous. “The video of the victim is still available on social media and her depression is unimaginable. She had to take professional help to ignore those contents. Even now, she lives in the fear of the video making its way into her network of colleagues,” said Vijayalakshmi.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau data, there was a 104 per cent spike in the volume of obscene content shared electronically between 2012 and 2014 alone. A 2010 cyber-crime report revealed that just 35 per cent of women report their victimisation. It also states that 18.3 per cent of women were not even aware that they had been victimised.