The government, on Tuesday, 19 February, took cognisance of the threats and abuse that several senior journalists have had to endure on WhatsApp since Sunday.

The Ministry of Communications & IT has issued a letter with the subject ‘Misuse of Telecom Network for sending obscene & vulgar messages’ to all the major mobile operators with orders to “take immediate action against customers/subscribers” of their respective networks who have sent lewd messages.

In doing so, the letter has also mentioned 19 mobile numbers, 16 of which pertain to those who have allegedly texted Ravish Kumar and three of those who have sent messages to Abhisar Sharma.