In what could further defame our country to its new low, an incident in the state of Uttar Pradesh has come to the limelight, which endangers the safety of women and their privacy.
In UP, Recharge shops are selling the mobile numbers of women at Rs.50 to Rs.500 depending on the teen looks”. Buyers then purchase the mobile number and start calling women for ‘friendship’ and ‘harmless fun’.
These men have also indulged in harassing the women and sending negative pictures and making bad talks.
The UP Police came to know about this when the women helpline number 1090 got bombarded by many complaints of women citing harassment over phone calls.
The Inspector General, Navneet Sekera, who controls the women cell and set up the helpline, helpfully points out that “there is no criminal case against the vendor and if they were to arrest every vendor that participated in this, then jail will overflow”. This kind of attitude of the police, the helpline number does little except alert the stalkers that they have been reported against, a potentially dangerous situation for the women involved.
After investigating, the police found that 90% of over 6 lakh complaints in the last four years were related to mobile phone harassment.
Police says – there’s no such law that will cause arrest for selling phone numbers but “UP Police” has found an alternative to it. They are now keeping an eye at the rechargers and book those who help purchase the SIM cards using a fake identity. “We have booked 3 recharge men so far under Section 467 for dealing with false documents”.
On the other hand, it’s sometimes difficult for the police to track the caller due to the fake IDs.
However, laws and punishment measures should be adopted to stop such malpractices.We need proper and better laws to deal with such issues because these details can be easily misused.
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