Ahmedabad: For a 21-year-old influencer, posting her garba performances was simply a way to share the joy of Navratri .
The accused allegedly portrayed her as their “wife”, a “girlfriend” and even labelled her a “sex worker” in some clips, police said. 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 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. “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. Police appealed to people who come across such material to contact the Cyber Rakshika team, which includes 10 women police officers.
“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 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. The cybercrime branch said it was monitoring social-media platforms to identify fake accounts and objectionable content targeting women and children.
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. 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. Women police officers counselled the complainants, whose identities were kept confidential while the cases were registered.
The nine cases followed complaints from women who were allegedly targeted through fake accounts on Instagram and Facebook , according to a statement issued by the cybercrime branch on Monday.
