Woman gets rape threats for tweeting on Dipa Karmakar's stunt

“Life is not worth any medal, for any damned country.” The social media cell of the Rajasthan Chief Minister’s Office informed the Jaipur police about the tweets

A woman in Jaipur, who was trolled and threatened with rape for her tweets ahead of gymnast Dipa Karmakar’s performance in Rio Olympics, received help after she posted a tweet to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.

The Rajasthan police registered a case against Twitter accounts of three unknown persons under Sections 66 D (Punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) and 67 (Punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the IT act, police said, adding they were trying to trace the accused.

In a series of tweets on August 14, the woman wrote, “Conflicted about Dipa Karmakar’s Olympic Vault final."

“It is an incredible achievement, of course, but gymnasts from richer countries don’t have to perform the Produnova, called the death vault, to gain points."

“They can do easier vaults and execute it better because: Better infrastructure, better training, better everything. Tonight, she is going to risk her life to win an Olympic medal."

“Life is not worth any medal, for any damned country.”

Her tweets drew sharp criticism including threats to her life and rape threats, following which she sought help from the Union minister.

Later, the social media cell of the Rajasthan Chief Minister’s Office informed the Jaipur police about the tweets and a senior police officer met her.

“After receiving directions, I met the girl on the night of August 14 and spoke to her about the matter. She filed a complaint and the FIR was lodged on August 15 with Pratap Nagar Police Station,” DCP East Kunwar Rastradeep said on Wednesday.

“We are in the process of obtaining some IP addresses and are writing to Twitter seeking information about certain handles.

“Since their server is located out of the country, it will take some time for us to reach to the users who abused her,” the officer said.

“We are working on the case considering the gravity of the case. Since the servers are placed outside India, it is a bit of a time-consuming process but we will get it done as early as possible,” Mukesh Chaudhary, a cyber crime expert assisting the police, said.