For a change, it also showed how women can hit back and smoke the abusive men out of their internet anonymity.
Reportedly, the men had relentlessly attacked the A-list singer, who is also an entrepreneur and voice artist, using racial, sexist and vulgar comments on her, and threatened her with rape and violence. The issue spilled over to Facebook and elsewhere on the web, where (mostly) men passed judgments on her.
Image courtesy: Facebook page.
From what Chinmayi wrote in her blog “Facing abuse and a backlash of rumours” it appears to be a rather long abusive pursuit by some men starting January last year. Reading her version of the story is quite distressing – that a young professional woman with public standing like her could be a target of such vicious attacks and threats.
In her complaint to the police, she has reportedly said that “a few individuals have threatened to kill, rape and assault” her on Twitter. She also added that “there are aspersions cast on my character as well as a chronic steam of vulgar references and innuendoes even about my mother”. She provided the police with six twitter handles that were used to malign and threaten her. The police, for once, was quick to arrest the culprits – a professor of fashion technology and a government employee.
The apparent reasons for the tirade were Tamil pride, her assumed stand on the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka and the attack by Sri Lankan navy on Tamil fishermen, her singing abilities, her eating habits and so on. But the reality was they just picked on her for what she is – a successful young woman professional – for their perverse attacks.
Over the last few months, it swelled into a minor online storm since the singer has a strong online and social media presence and considerable fan following. Her twitter handle is followed by more than 100,000 people.
The messages and discussions, some of which are highlighted by Chinmayi herself in her blog, clearly smack of the ruthlessly sexist, sexual, racial and domineering attitude of a large section of Indian men towards women. Acting on the singer’s complaint, the city police commissioner said the police has received several complaints of online harassment from women and there will be strict action.
Chinamyi’s stature helped to highlight the fact that women are susceptible to assaults and sexual abuse, including rape, since online criminals either carry fake identities or feel that they are anonymous. In a similar case, the Kerala police recently nabbed a man who meticulously impersonated an actress on Facebook that affected her public and private life.
Not surprisingly, the online crime against women is not confined to India alone. Ever since internet became widely available in the late 1990s, the (world-wide) web has been a free field for men who wanted to stalk women and children and indulge in sexual abuses. Source-Firstpost
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