In the wake of the #BoislockerRoom controversy that broke out on social media last year, a teen girl had written a post on Instagram alleging that she was sexual harassed by her former classmate. The schoolgirl is now set to face trial for abetment to suicide at a juvenile court after the boy died by suicide.
The police filed a charge sheet against the girl and another teen on Wednesday, March 24.
The 17-year-old boy, who was accused of sexual harassment, had jumped to death from the 11th floor of a building in Gurugram on May 4, 2020, hours after the post was shared on social media.
The girl had written the Instagram post when #BoisLockerRoomk was dominating conversations among high school students, reported The Times Of India.
The girl claimed that she and her friends had revealed personal experiences to each other about how they were subjected to harassment and how it was 'normalised' by people. According to the girl, she was sexually harassed by the 17-year-old when they both were in class 10 and had become friends.
She said that the boy had come to the house and both of them had gone out for a walk. There, she alleged, the boy had touched her inappropriately and demanded sexual favours.
"I told them about my experience. Everyone was shocked. They told me I should no longer be silent and that the story needs to be out there," the girl had said.
In a complaint to the police, the father of the teenage boy had alleged that a person posted a story on Instagram falsely accusing his son of sexual abuse while citing an incident that allegedly occurred two years ago.
"The girl was aware that this post amounted to public shaming and would malign the social image of my son. I was also told that my son received an illegal and unlawful threat over his phone after the post went up," the father had claimed.
The father of the 17-year-old boy, however, expressed his disappointment with the probe.
"Even after filing the charge sheet after a long period, police are yet to submit details of the probe about the involvement of others in the case. The cops also did not produce, Instagram, WhatsApp and Snapchat records," the father of the boy said.
Following the complaint, the police registered a case under sections 305 (abetment to suicide) and 34 (common intent) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the girl and one of her friends.