Maneka Gandhi announces new cyber cell for women facing online abuse
The Women and Child Development Minister said her department will take notice of any act on the internet that counts as harassment.
Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Friday announced that her department had set up a new cyber cell to deal with abuse women face online. Gandhi mentioned a recent case in which a girl from Salem, Tamil Nadu, committed suicided after morphed photos of her circulated on Facebook. Gandhi said, “Say what you want on the Net but if there is a case of abusive crime, stalking, then my department will take cognisance.”
Bureaucrat Chetan Sanghi will head the cell. The department also spoke to officials from social media site Twitter to recommend mechanisms to check online abuse. Gandhi had earlier asked the National Commission for Women to monitor cases of cyberbullying or stalking. However, NCW chief Lalitha Kumaramangalam had said it was impossible to police the internet and said this was a job for the police, NDTV reported.