November 21, 2024

The case of a troll sending lewd messages on Facebook to Sharmistha Mukherjee, daughter of President Pranab Mukherjee is not the first one where women have been so harassed on social media. Most of the women do not escalate the matter and just block the sender. But Sharmistha was courageous and reported the matter to the police. Success with one abuse emboldens the harasser and he turns into a serial abuser. Sharmistha said that she went public with her experience as she wanted to tell women who faced such abuse to come forward and speak about it so that the culprits might be arrested. She also said that if she had remained silent by just blocking the man, he would have moved on to abuse others.

It is seen that sometimes the abusers are persons known to the victim who do this from false accounts they create on social media. With women facing molestation and worse on the streets from people who are not afraid of the consequences, this faceless abuse is only going to increase. Women should report every abuse so that the culprits are arrested. Only then will trolls get the message.