Delhi Police clears girl who created fake Snapchat profile and started rape talk

Delhi Police said the girl made a fake profile but had no malicious intent to cheat anyone or commit fraud, so no case will be made out.

Representational image of social media apps | Alexander Bahena | Pixabay

New Delhi: The Delhi Police Friday gave a clean chit to a teenage girl in the Bois Locker Room controversy, ThePrint has learnt, nearly a week after they discovered that she had used a fake name to speak to a male friend and suggested a plan of sexual assault to test his character.

The girl, using the name ‘Siddharth’ on Snapchat, had talked about “aggravated sexual assault on herself”, screenshots of which were shared on the Bois Locker Room chat group on Instagram. The screenshots eventually led to the police discovering that the Instagram group had teenage boys as members who shared morphed nude images of girls.

The police said the girl did not have any “malicious intention to defraud or cheat anyone using that fake profile and hence no case will be made out”.

“Though making a fake profile amounts to impersonation, but in this case, the girl did not make a profile with a purpose to cheat someone, or do a fraud. There is no mens rea (intention) to commit a crime here,” a senior police officer said. “Hence, no case will be made out,” he added.

Prank gone wrong

According to a source, when the girl was called in for examination, she told the police that she did not think her prank would escalate into a controversy.

She had said she just wanted to see how her friend would react to someone talking about raping her.

“She wanted to judge the boy’s character to see if he engages with the person talking of her sexual assault or not,” the source said. “In fact, she said she was shocked when her screenshots started doing the rounds on social media and were linked to the Bois Locker Room case,” he added.

The Delhi Police, while investigating the ‘Bois Locker Room’ case, discovered that the conversation around “gang rape” of the girl did not occur on the Instagram group.

Instead, it was a separate Snapchat conversation between two individuals, initiated by a girl, which “coincidentally got mixed up”.

Bois Locker Room still being investigated

The police are continuing their investigation into the Bois Locker Room case.

So far, the police have found that the participants of the group, which included both minors and adults, were sharing morphed pictures of girls, including that of their classmates, and commenting on their bodies.

When the controversy ballooned, the members deleted the group and also switched off their phones. The police then wrote to Instagram, seeking details of the group members and the content shared.

“We have received one report from Instagram which has given us details of all the participants. These are email IDs that the participants must have used to log into Instagram. We have also asked Instagram to give us details of the conversations so that we can assess the same,” the police officer said.

The police have also sent the mobile phones of two members — an adult, who has been arrested, and a juvenile, who was held — for forensic examination.

“Their phones will also have some remnants of the chats that will be recovered,” the police officer said.

The police are also investigating how screenshots of a Snapchat conversation between two individuals got mixed up with the chats on the Bois Locker Room group on Instagram.

“It is a possibility that due to its sensational nature, the Snapchat screenshot got mixed up with the ‘Bois Locker Room’ case. But the Snapchat chat happened much before the Bois Locker Room group chat. There is a time lag between the two. We are investigating how the two got mixed up,” the officer said.