The National Commission for Women (NCW) issued notices to the BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya, Congress MP Digvijay Singh, and actress Swara Bhasker for their Twitter posts revealing the identity of the victim of the Hathras gang rape.
The notices were issues seeking an explanation to their posts along with the directions to remove those posts immediately.
The BJP leader on October 2nd tweeted a 48-second video. In the video, the interaction between the victim and the reporter clearly showed the victim’s face.
According to Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code, disclosing the identity of a rape victim or victim of sexual assault is prohibited and it’s an offence punishable with imprisonment up to 2 years and fine.
The commission in its notice said that:
“The Supreme Court had held that the bar on disclosure under Section 228A (2) of the IPC was not confined to just the name of the victim but actually meant that the “identity of the victim should not be discernible from any matter published in the media”
The NCB also issued separate notices to actress Swara Bhasker and Digvijay Singh.
It further emphasized that, these tweets were widely circulated by their followers.
The NCB, therefore, issued notices asking for an explanation to their posts and to remove such posts and also to restrain the transmission of such posts in social media.