Net of sleaze stifling an innocent

SANIA (NAME changed) is having sleepless nights at home. The nightmare continues through the day at work, to the extent that she almost lost her job. All because some unidentified stalker chose to float Sania?s profile on Orkut, Google?s social-networking site, as that of a call girl. He went on to load her name and other essential details like address of her workplace, along with her morphed picture.

SANIA (NAME changed) is having sleepless nights at home. The nightmare continues through the day at work, to the extent that she almost lost her job. All because some unidentified stalker chose to float Sania’s profile on Orkut, Google’s social-networking site, as that of a call girl. He went on to load her name and other essential details like address of her workplace, along with her morphed picture.

HT Image

Going through the profile gives the impression that Sania loaded the information to attract ‘clients and business’, which is far from the truth. She claims someone she doesn’t know is harassing her and that she is not even computer-friendly.

The stalker wrote the name of the mall and the shop in which she is employed, even specifying the name of the sales counter she works on. The stalker, however, did not stop at here, he even tries to specify her clothes. The profile openly invites prospective ‘clients’ to come and meet her at the sales counter.

When HT met Sania at the counter, she almost burst out crying. She said, “I have not floated all this information on Orkut…somebody else has done it! Earlier, he/she had floated a morphed picture of mine but a few days later removed it. Now every second day there are men at the counter asking me to meet them at a specified place or asking my…rate,” her voice trails off. “All this has been going on for the last one month and my life is hell. All this is affecting even my colleagues as men who come to see me are filthy and shameless.”

She added, “This matter has reached the management of the mall and they are insisting that I give them an explanation. They have warned me that if all this does not stop at the earliest, I will be sacked.”

This is not a lone case where women are being harassed through the Internet. Special Task Force officials say they usually get complaints from women saying that someone had loaded false and obscene information about them. One of the officials said, “When women face such a problem, it is advisable that they should contact the police at the earliest so that we can help them.”