Woman trolled for tweeting about Dipa's performance, case lodged

A woman who faced life threats and sexual abuses online for her tweets ahead of gymnast Dipa Karmakar's performance in Rio Olympics sought the help of Union Minister Sushma Swaraj following which a case was lodged by Rajasthan Police.

A case against three Twitter handles of unknown persons was registered under 66 D (Punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) and 67 (Punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the IT act, police said, adding they were trying to trace the accused.

In a series of tweets on August 14, the woman wrote, "Conflicted about Dipa Karmakar's Olympic Vault final.

"It is an incredible achievement, of course but gymnasts from richer countries don't have to perform the produnova, called the death vault, to gain points.

"They can do easier vaults and execute it better because: better infrastructure, better training, better everything. Tonight, she is going to risk her life to win an Olympic medal.

"Life is not worth any medal, for any damned country."

Her tweets drew sharp criticism including threat to life and rape warnings following which she sought help from the External Affairs Minister.

After her plea, the Chief Minister's Office intervened and a senior police officer met her.

"After receiving directions, I met the girl on the night of August 14 and spoke to her about the matter. She filed a complaint and the FIR was lodged on August 15 with Pratap Nagar Police Station," DCP East Kunwar Rastradeep said today.

"We are in the process of obtaining some IP addresses and are writing to Twitter seeking information about certain the handles.

"Since their server is located out of the country, it will take some time for us to reach to the users who abused her," the officer said.

"We are working on the case considering the gravity of the case. Since the servers are placed outside India, it is a bit of a time consuming process but we will get it done as early as possible," Mukesh Chaudhary, a cyber crime expert assisting the police, said.