India: WHRD threatened, vilified for supporting a victim of domestic violence
Event- Country
- India
- Initial Date
- Aug 17, 2021
- Event Description
About the Human Rights Defenders: Ms. Gayathri Srikanth is a teacher, writer and women’s rights activist. She heads a Women’s forum called Iraivi Pengal in Puducherry, working against violation of women’s rights and for the welfare of the women in the community. Details of the Incident: On August 09, 2021, a woman victim went to the Lawspet Police Station in Puducherry to register a complaint against her husband for domestic violence. At the police station, Mr. Shanmugam, a police constable, harassed the victim by using inappropriate language describing her physical appearance and asked for an oil massage in return for helping her get a lawyer for her case. The victim left the police station and approached Ms. Gayathri Srikanth and told her about the harassment she faced at the Lawspet police station. To collect evidence against Mr. Shanmugam and to confirm his conversation with the victim at the police station, Ms. Srikanth asked the victim to call Mr. Shanmugam over the phone in her presence on August 11, 2021. The conversation of this phone call was recorded. On the same day, Ms. Srikanth then called the police station, complained to the SP that she had the evidence in form of recording and asked them to take a stern action against Mr. Shanmugam. However, no action was taken against him, and he was transferred to the armed forces dept on August 12, 2021. On August 16, 2021, the woman victim registered an FIR in the Lawspet police station against Mr. Shanmugam for harassment. Since then, on multiple occasions Mr. Shanmugam called both the victim and Ms. Srikanth over the phone and threatened them repeatedly. He also sent them malicious messages over social media and WhatsApp targeting saying that Ms. Srikanth was extorting the police for compensation regularly. He called and threatened victim’s husband and posted lewd and filthy messages regarding the victim in whatsapp groups. His harassment of the original victim and the WHRD has caused much mental agony to both the women. On August 19, 2021, Ms. Srikanth and the victim wrote an email complaint to the cybercrime police at Puducherry against Mr. Shanmugam for threats and malicious messages he had sent. On August 20, 2021, Mr. Shanmugam was suspended from duty. However, no FIR was registered against him by the cybercrime police. Furthermore, the cybercrime police told Ms. Srikanth that since article 66 (A) of the IT Act has been struck down, her complaint had been closed. On August 24, 2021, Ms. Srikanth wrote a letter to the Senior Superintendent of Police, Puducherry, asking for his help as there was no FIR filed by the cyber police on the incident but received no reply.
- Impact of Event
- 1
- Gender of HRD
- Woman
- Violation
- Intimidation and Threats
- Online Attack and Harassment
- Vilification
- Rights Concerned
- Access to justice
- Right to healthy and safe environment
- Right to protect reputation
- Women's rights
- HRD
- Community-based HRD
- WHRD
- Perpetrator-State
- Police
- Source
Case shared by FORUM-ASIA member People's Watch
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: 11.934081965244392
Longitude: 79.82730684900572
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 17 August 2021, Gayathri Srikanth, WHRD, was threatened and vilified by a police officer after she supported a woman reporting domestic violence and who faced police inaction in Puducherry, India.