A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Delhi High Court demanding investigation by a Special Investigation Team or the Central Bureau Of Investigation into the “Bois Locker Room”, an Instagram group where obscene messages and morphed pictures of underage girls were shared. The plea also sought the arrest of those involved.
The participants of the chat room were mostly young teenage boys from Delhi who allegedly shared objectionable content about girls.
The plea is likely to come up for hearing on May 13.
Petitioner Dev Ashish Dubey also sought protection for the girls and women who had reported the incident from the school students who were members of the group.
“Since the issue is related to the offence committed against girls and women by the group members of an Instagram group named as ”Bois Locker Room”, which was created by school students mainly staying in South Delhi. Hence the petitioner preferred this PIL,” the plea said.
The plea, filed through advocates Dushyant Tiwari and Om Prakash Parihar, sought a direction to the centre and the Delhi government to get the social media chat group incident investigated through a Special Investigation Team (SIT) or the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
It also sought a direction to the authorities to arrest all the members of the Instagram group immediately.
“The entire issue needs to be investigated by the SIT or CBI as these students belong to high profile families and there is an apprehension that the investigation or enquiry conducted by the local police will be influenced and wrongdoers will never be arrested and punished,” the plea alleged.
Instead of being apologetic or fearful after the inappropriate posts were made public, the boys openly threatened the girls for calling them out. The offence committed by these students is illegal and amounts to a violation of various laws, it said.
Earlier, two advocates had written a letter to the Delhi High Court Chief Justice to take suo motu cognisance of the incident.
Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell has arrested the 18-year-old admin of the chat group. He appeared for his class 12 board examinations this year.
He is a student of a school in Delhi-NCR and four group members, all above the age of 18, have joined the probe, police said.
The juveniles, who are part of the group, are being questioned at their homes in the presence of their parents and members of NGOs. A juvenile member has also been detained.
The Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) had issued a notice to Instagram and Delhi Police after taking cognisance of the matter.