india

Updated: Apr 27, 2020 15:09 IST

A 33-year-old businesswoman in Maharashtra’s Mumbai received several threats and abuses over the phone after she commented on a video on Facebook about social distancing in slums, police said.

Goregaon Police said the woman, who co-owns a start-up, complimented the social activist who uploaded the video, ‘Social distancing a Myth in Slums’.

But she also criticised him for his careless comments while he addressed the issue, angering a friend from college over her “negative comment”

The friend then tagged people asking them to give her a fitting reply following which multiple people trolled her. She blocked them and thought the issue was over.

However, on April 24 she began getting calls from five people and was threatened, abused with lewd comments. The accused demanded an apology and asked her to delete her comments.

After that, the accused wrote defamatory comments about on her company’s website and LinkedIn. They also tried to contact her business partner, who lives abroad.

“Social media is also to share our views and we are bound to have differences in opinions. But it is more than just dangerous for the nation to have citizens who convert the social media interaction into threats, harassment and defamation,” she said while speaking to HT.

A first information report (FIR) was registered on Sunday at the Goregaon police station against the people who harassed and trolled her under section 509 (word, act or gesture to insult the modesty of a woman), 504 (intentional insult), 506 (criminal intimidation), 500 (defamation) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with section 67 (publishing obscene content in electronic form) of information technology act.