Cyber Stalking: Emerging Offence Of Online Harassment

Prachi Sohi, Uttaranchal University, Dehradun

ABSTRACT

Individuals’ excessive use of technology-enabled communication platforms, such as social media, has led to scholarly recognition of rising incidents of cyberstalking1. The technological era has led to so many changes in the lifestyle of people, but it has also opened doors for criminal offenders2. It becomes a comfortable task to stalk someone without any trouble. Earlier people used to follow someone or cause trouble in physical space but in this digital era people can reach any corner of the world with the help of technology which leads to cyber stalking. Mostly women are the victims of these types of attacks as per the survey reports. They can be harassed, defamed, or even blackmailed to get sexual favours from them for the sake of the protection of their personal information. But as the number of cases of cybercrimes keeps on increasing, no one is paying as much attention as required, no strict laws are there to abate these types of activities. To confront with these types of cyber-attacks, one has to take the route of Indian Penal Code,1950 (hereinafter called as IPC) to check whether harm occurred to the victim is mentioned under IPC or not, if yes, then only case can be filed and some actions can be taken. The cyberstalker could be charged under section 509 of the IPC for invading a woman's modesty. For e.g, Simply for peeping into someone’s device and stealing the information that is of personal importance for an individual or harassing someone via technology3. These types of cases seem to be less serious than those which are occurring in the physical space for the government to deal with. Police feels more convenient to deal with these types of issues as they are taking place physically and can cause serious threats to the individual. But we cannot say that the government is not doing anything from their end, various amendments have been made by keeping in mind several cases that took place by misusing the technology and causing serious threat to an individual. For e.g., Ritu kohli’s caset gives rise to section 66A of Information Technology Act, 2000(hereinafter called as IT Act). Seema Khanna (name changed) case of invasion in privacy4. Various reforms in law should be done to alleviate cyber stalking cases in our country so that citizens can live peacefully without any fear of being exposed globally. Government should take some elephantine steps to abate this issue.

Keywords: Technological Era, Harassment, Women modesty,