Legal

Stalking: Do Laws In India Prevent Such Crimes

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This Blog is written by Muskan Agarwal from Galgotias University, Uttar Pradesh. Edited by Ravikiran Shukre.

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INTRODUCTION

The term or the theory Stalking is referred to as an idiosyncratic manifestation of criminal activity composed of a series of action instead of a single act that taken individually might constitute legal behaviour. A people could be stalked by a stranger, but mostly the stalkers are known individuals and that could even be an intimate partner. It might get substandard or brutal at times.

Stalked might get threats of his/her safety by mentioning that they could be harmed by the stalker or sometimes the harassment is with less threatening with unwanted contact. This could led to mental harassment of the person, leading to various health issues. In this infobahn era, this activity is largely prevalent through technology which is named as “cyber stalking” using the cyberspace on various electronic devices communicating and stalking the baited individual.

The examples could be seen as following the targeted individual or been spied by a person or group of people. Stalkee receiving unwanted mails or letters, random unknown calls by the same stalker, supervising all the activities of the stalked and uninvited showing up often at places of your work, college, school etc., at times leaving you with unwanted gifts unknowingly; and if this got violent then might be destroying your properly things like vehicles, home etc., and even your family been followed up by you and getting threatening calls, texts and unwanted violent scenarios where there is the larger movement of your family.

CYBER STALKING

The person is being harassed or threatened on social media platforms, the internet use of the stalkee is been totally tracked and with the technology it makes it easier for the stalker to track where his/ her bait is, frightening emails, developing fear and paranoia for someone else as well as hacking into online accounts etc.

Cyberstalking can be very dreadful for the victim affecting their overall lifestyle as if their career, relationships etc.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LAWS OF STALKING AND THE STATUTORY PROVISIONS

With the increasing terror of the stalking cases, eventually a stricter law was legislated under the criminal law (amendment) act, 2013, where stalking was made a punishable offence under section 354D of the IPC, with the punishment of up to three years of imprisonment for the first time offenders;

Whereby, this law still has a major loophole in it which is – that stalking is a bailable offence i.e. the first offence of stalking is “bailable”, insinuating the accrued need not to be produced before court with the intention to seek bail and can walk to freedom from police station itself.

Section 354(D) of Indian Penal Code (hereinafter referred to as IPC), is defined as, “whoever monitors the use by a person of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication that results in a fear of violence, or interferes with the mental peace of such person, commits the offence of stalking.”

A landmark case, where Vikash Barala, the offender in the Varnika’s Case, was out on bail on the exact same day he was arrested only because of the presence of the “bailable” portion of Section 354(D).

It was only the, after the heinous gang- rape and murder case of December 16,2012, that a committee known as The Justice Verma Committee was set up, where it was recommended that stalking should be introduced as a non-bailable offence with one to three years of imprisonment as a punishment. The legal proposal was after then accepted by the UPA government and then endorsed by a Parliamentary Standing Committee.

But the Bill so proposed was twitched by the opposition of many opposition parties; however, the bill which got introduced in Parliament, eventually the first offence of stalking was made bailable whereas, any consecutive offence was amended to the non-bailable offence with an enhancement in punishment of up to five years in imprisonment.

In India, a criminal lawyer could be hired to take legal actions against stalking. a complaint could also be filed with the National Commission for the Women and the Stalkee could be helped by the organizations.

In case of cyberstalking, then there are not being issued by the Indian laws with so focus as these crimes are considered as minor crimes. Hence, there are no specific provisions to address this crime and the section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 only comes into limelight when some obscene material is posted by the stalker on the online platforms showing up the stalkee.

In such cases, where no particular laws are executed then it becomes very important to talk to a cybercrime lawyer who could help in filing a complaint for online stalking in a cyber crime cell in your city.

Coming back to Varnika’s case, wherein after the case was followed up by a no. of cases and many more, efforts are once again made to make the offence a non-bailable one, i.e. the first offence of stalking to be non-bailable.

A Supreme Court Advocate, Karuna Nundy, expressed her thoughts stating that stalking not being recognized as a non-bailable offence in the first instance, it rouses the criminals in the society to commit acid attack, rape and murder. “This is a massive lacuna.”

Furthermore, an acid attack survivor, Laxmi Saa, who was attacked by a stalker in 2005 at the age of 15 said: “I did not live like a victim. I am a survivor. I am not ‘poor thing’. I have all rights to live my life to the fullest. I have made a place for myself. Support yourself, and only then others will support you.”

IMPACT

Days back when there was lack of machinery and technology to deal with such serious cases, this has been argued that as the primary and the major reason for the death of impact of the present laws. The lack of laws protecting the society from these kind of offences got the fear instilled in the victim’s mind about registering a complaint with the law enforcement authorities due to lack of sensitization of this crime and empathy to be shown towards the victim. Most of the victims (43.3%) say that they haven’t heard about stalking prior to their own victimization. 25.3% believed it to be a severe harassment problem and a small percent of them 14% felt that only mentally ill stalked. The issue is that the people were not aware of such a mischievous yet serious criminal activity happening around them. Where in the above data approx. 28% of the people said that they are still being stalked.

Astonishingly, the graph says that only a minimal amount of the stalkers had prior relations with the person who became their stalker. The report conducted by various crime organizations together reveals that the five main methods of stalking and harassment are: Following (reported by 55.3% of victims), unsolicited phone calls (30.7%), Spying (11.3%, including stood outside home 14%, while 12.7% stood outside the college), unsolicited letters (22.7%) and trying to communicate with the victim (17.4%).

The impact of the laws has been observed but it might have said that there is a loop hole in the Indian Judicial system that the justice is being delayed and so it could be said justice denied according to the proverb ‘Justice Delayed is Justice Denied’. There is a huge number of cases of eve- teasing and stalking and not forgetting cyber stalking. It was the result of cyber stalking that the case months before called as “Boys Locker Room” came up with such a serious issue where girls mostly teenage girls were being humiliated and been joked upon by teenage school going boys. In that case there was a major threat given to the girls of being getting raped and kidnapped. Hence, the cyber cell took the action and all the offenders were taken to the children organizations as they being under the adult age for the laws to be implemented.

The impact of stalking is often wide ranging, severe and psychologically traumatic. It affects the mental state to that extent that it coerces the person to take their lives off i.e. to commit suicide which is a serious issue to be talked upon. Hence, report reveals that many victims feel constantly on alert, vulnerable, out of control, stressed and anxious. Dealing with kind of cases can consume all their energy. They may experience loss of trust, long-term emotional distress and significant disruption of everyday living.

CONCLUSION

Stalking is becoming more and more serious offence and there is less strict implementation of the laws as the victims themselves feel not safe and of not any use going to the police stations and filing the cases as they know the fact that there would be no serious supervision to the case and would be taken as a normal. The need is the AWARENESS of such serious offences in the society so that the people could look upon more if anything negative happens to them even a bit. There’s a proverb “Precaution is better than cure”, the same has to be applied here and the cycle starts from the implementation of the laws and the provisions.