BoisLockerRoom: Girl sends message of rape threat to test friend's character

The 'BoisLockerRoom' case took a turn with Delhi Police on Sunday claiming that one of the leaked conversations of an Instagram group about sexually assaulting a student was actually a personal chat between a girl hiding behind the identity of a boy to a friend to test his character.

The leakage of conversations in 'BoisLockerRoom', a group in popular App Instagram where school and college students shared morphed images and sexually explicit chats, had enraged people for its misogynistic content.

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During investigations, police had earlier arrested an 18-year-old boy, who was the admin of the 'BoisLockerRoom', besides detaining a minor who was also a member of the group. More than 24 students connected with the case have been interviewed or questioned and their devices have been seized have been sent for forensic analysis.

Some of the screenshots that were shared in social media showed comments like "I will rape her easily" while some others threatened to leak nude photos of girls who unravelled the group. Later, the Instagram account was deleted while it re-emerged in a different avatar while some others moved to Snapchat.

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Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) Anyesh Roy said efforts are being made to identify remaining members of the group. Instagram has so far shared "partial information" about three Instagram accounts involved in such chats, Roy said.

During investigations, Roy said in a press statement, among the various screenshots of 'BoisLockerRoom' shared on social media platforms was the screenshot of a "one-to-one" Snapchat conversation where one 'Siddharth' was suggesting a plan of an "aggravated sexual assault of a girl" to another boy.

"Investigation has revealed that the alleged Snapchat conversation is actually between a girl (sender) and a boy (receiver) in which the girl is sending chat messages through a fictional Snapchat account named 'Siddharth'. Using the fake identity of a male person, she suggested in the chat, a plan to sexually assault herself," Roy said.

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He said the girl's purpose was to check the "reaction of the boy and the strength of his character, especially when someone talks bad things about the girl herself".

However, the boy refused to be part of any such plan and stopped communicating with 'Siddharth'. The boy then took a screenshot of the chat and informed his friends, including the girl who actually sends him the message without knowing the real story. The girl, Roy said, did not reveal to him or any other friends that she was behind that particular chat and why she did that.

"One of the other recipients of the screenshot, however, posted it as an Instagram story for some time, from where it started circulating in connected social media accounts of friends, schoolmates, etc. When the Bois Locker Room Instagram screenshots were revealed to others and started circulating on social media, the alleged Snapchat conversation also got mixed with it due to its sensational nature and due to its availability in different student groups," Roy said.