If only the net knew no gender

Mateen Hafeez | TNN

Mumbai: It is said that the internet knows no gender. While that does not ring true for women when it comes to cyber bullying and stalking, it does have a perverse element of truth about it.

“Men, too, are approaching the police with complaints about fake profiles or real ones on social networking web sites being hacked into. Recently, we received three such complaints,” said an officer from the cyber crime investigation cell of the police.

One of the complainants, a father of two who fell out with his business partner, found his sexual preference on his profile changed to ‘gay’. Soon he started receiving calls from homosexual men in hot pursuit of him. His trauma lasted till the police deleted the account.

In the second case, two youths were in love with the same girl. When she accepted the overtures of one of them, the other created a fake profile of the victor containing his phone number and stating his sexual orientation as ‘gay’. “The youth was shocked to see his new online reality. He started receiving calls from men seeking sexual favours,” the officer said. “If this wasn’t enough, one of the callers went to the extent of inquiring about the size of his member!”

In the third case, two acquaintances had a brawl over a petty issue. One created a fake profile of the other, stating him as gay and seeking “satisfaction”. The calls followed.

“You cannot imagine the trauma of such victims,” the officer said. “When their friends and relatives come to know about the case, they feel embarrassed. Just like women victims, they refuse to lodge a formal complaint fearing stigmatization. They seek our help only so that the profiles can be deleted.

“Most of the time, we play the role of mediators and counsellors. We see them traumatized. They tell us that they feel everyone is looking at them with suspicion. But we try to convince them that they are perfectly alright and the culprit will soon be caught.”


The Times of India, March 29, 2011