Ahmedabad: For a 21-year-old influencer, posting her garba performances was simply a way to share the joy of Navratri. But three teenagers chasing social-media fame allegedly hijacked her videos, turning them into hundreds of defamatory clips to rack up views and gain followers. The accused allegedly portrayed her as their “wife”, a “girlfriend” and even labelled her a “sex worker” in some clips, police said.The case is among nine FIRs registered by the Ahmedabad cybercrime branch under Mission Cyber Rakshika, an initiative aimed at tackling cyberstalking, online abuse, identity theft and blackmail. The branch has arrested eight people, including a woman, and initiated action against the three minors.The teenagers allegedly created hundreds of edited videos of the 21-year-old, who regularly uploads garba performances and had gained popularity after several of her clips went viral. “They posted objectionable messages in some of the posts and even outed her parents’ phone numbers,” said police, who have deleted around 150 such videos and are working to identify and remove the remaining content.“The accused are aged between 16 and 17. Two of them are Class 12 students, while the third is a school dropout who works as a daily-wage labourer,” said police.“The influencer’s videos would regularly pop up on the feed of the teenagers who had just 400 to 500 followers. They believed that if they edited and posted videos of the influencer, they would attract more likes and followers.” Police believe the teenagers’ motive was not personal rivalry but the notion that sensational content would improve their online visibility.The teenagers allegedly used their parents’ mobile numbers to create social-media accounts, police said, and are investigating how they obtained the influencer’s parents’ phone numbers.According to a statement issued by the cybercrime branch on Monday, the nine cases followed complaints from women who were allegedly targeted through fake accounts on Instagram and Facebook. Women police officers counselled the complainants, whose identities were kept confidential while the cases were registered.Police said the alleged motives ranged from personal disputes and failed relationships to resentment following disagreements. They used technical analysis of information from social media platforms to trace the accused in Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra.In one case, a man allegedly created a fake Instagram profile using a woman’s photograph, contacted her husband’s friends while impersonating her and uploaded objectionable photographs of her to the account’s stories.
Online harassment cases
In another case, a man allegedly circulated a video claiming that a woman was involved in an extramarital relationship. Police said the accused had a personal dispute with her following a confrontation involving his mother and the woman’s friend. He allegedly used social media to spread the claim and damage her reputation.Another man allegedly created a fake account using a woman’s photographs and sent an objectionable video to her sister. Police said the accused and the complainant had been in a relationship, but differences between them allegedly led to the harassment.In a separate case, a man allegedly sent objectionable photographs of a woman to her fiance through a fake Instagram account after she refused to marry him. Police suspect that he intended to disrupt her engagement.A woman was also accused of creating a fake Instagram account in the name of a female colleague and messaging people through it. Police said she allegedly held a grudge against the colleague over her friendship with a male co-worker.The cybercrime branch said it was monitoring social-media platforms to identify fake accounts and objectionable content targeting women and children. Police appealed to people who come across such material to contact the Cyber Rakshika team, which includes 10 women police officers.
