Update: The Delhi police cyber cell group has successfully tracked the one of the alleged participants of the group. The authorities have seized his mobile phone and are in the process of identifying more people involved in the horrendous virtual activity.
The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has issued a notice to Instagram to share important information such as user IDs and locations of each group member in order to find all the alleged accused.?
The troubled conversation about how rape culture is normalised has been around for a while now and yet, incidents of women getting brutally raped all around the world make it to headlines almost every day.?
What is hitting the headlines today is an alleged group chat between a bunch of 17-year-old boys where they're apparently talking about gangraping girls and sharing morphed pictures of minors. The matter reportedly came to light when a Twitter user posted a screenshot of their Snapchat conversation claiming that the boys are Delhi-based school-going students.
The user further added that the boys had another group on Instagram by the name of 'Bois Locker Room' where they 'casually' discussed rape and she also alleged that two of the boys from the chat were students of the same school she goes to. Needless to say, there was a tone of both panic and disgust in the user's tone.
She further went on to share screenshots of the alleged participants of the group and many other users came forward and identified the boys.?
The cops are reportedly investigating the matter. According to information circulating on Instagram and Twitter, Shubham Singh, whose IG bio says he is a cyber investigator and advisor to government agencies has also started looking into the matter.?
Apparently, he has traced down a few of the boys and will be reporting them accordingly.??
But the so-called guilty part didn't stop there apparently, and followed the mess up with another round. In other leaked screenshots of their chats, they were reportedly discussing taking revenge against the women who exposed them by posting their nudes online.
A screenshot of a Snapchat conversation was then forwarded to the women exposing these boys where they were apparently discussing 'gangraping her.' It was later clarified by an Instagram user that the conversation followed the expos¨¦ and the boys trying to 'threaten' the women.
In fact, there are also claims that some girls who are allegedly friends with the boys involved are trying to defend them by either saying they weren't actively participating in the group or that they will help them take revenge.
The hashtag #BoysLockerRoom has been trending on Twitter ever since with angry people calling out each and every single thing that is wrong with enabling such behaviour.? ?
Internalised misogyny and normalising rape culture like this is unfortunately all too common and as much as people would like to believe that teenagers do not participates in this, they are wrong. This is where the roots lie and it's from here that crimes against women happen around the world. Such 'locker room talk' and 'boys will be boys' statements need to be done with immediately and every single person who participates needs to be punished for the same.?