Editor,
Although belated, it is good to learn that the cyber crime wing of the Meghalaya police is using new software to monitor fake news and inflammatory comments on social media round-the-clock. But monitoring alone is not enough. It is important to identify and give stringent punishment to individuals making abusive trolls, sharing fake news and inflammatory speeches on social media. The fundamental right to freedom of speech as enshrined in the Constitution of India does not allow any citizen of the country to exceed the limits of decency and misuse the right so guaranteed. The Constitution of India does not allow a citizen to encroach upon or invade into the privacy of another citizen.
Ms Sushma Swaraj, foreign minister of India, was abroad on official assignment from June 17- to 21. Despite her kidney transplantation, not so long ago rather in the recent past, she is devoting herself to giving prompt aid and relief to Indians in distress at any point of time in any part of the globe. In fact the present Foreign Minister has become a sort of Florence Nightingale for Indians stranded overseas, responding to their SOS pleas at all hours. She might have taken to heart and accepted seriously the maxim of ‘Charity begins at home’ & Service to mankind is service to God’ during her growing years embellished with the true ideals of our rich Indian culture and heritage. And she is now rendering great humanitarian and un-paralleled philanthropic service in today’s restive and selfish world.
In 1993 when Sushma Swaraj was an MP and a former education minister, she had lived in a hospital for a year for nursing her ailing mother-in-law personally refusing to engage a medical attendant. An exemplary service that needs to be emulated by one and all.
It is a national shame that an individual, claiming to be a former Delhi IIT graduate, had in a troll advised Sushma Swaraj’s husband Mr Swaraj Kaushal, former Mizoram governor “to beat her up & teach her not to do Muslim appeasement,” when she returned home. “Tell her Muslims will never vote for BJP,” the troll said. The sustenance of the trolling for a week seems to suggest that there might have been a wink and nod from the authorities controlling social media and cybercrime and this needs to be investigated for fixing responsibility and for bringing them to public domain.
And now the trolls are asking Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi last Sunday July 1 to send her 10-year old daughter over so that she can be raped.
Incidentally there was a congratulatory message by the Prime minister on Social Media Day last week, “to my young friends for their innovative usage of social media”. I would humbly like to know from the Prime Minister of India whether the above two heinous , humiliating and abusive trolls are innovative use of social media?
I am confident the Hon’ble Prime Minister will condemn the trolls and the abusive trollers and take action against such individuals immediately for deterrent punishment to nip in the bud any recurrence in future.
Ours is a Motherland. We must respect our Mothers, Mother figures, sisters and daughters and respect other’s wives , sisters and daughters. This sort of vicious trolling is unacceptable.
Yours etc.,
Samares Bandyopadhyay
Advocate, Kolkata High Court
Camp: Shillong
Social media abusers
Editor,
The Meghalaya Police has done well by booking those responsible for spreading hate messages and instigating violence in the name of protecting the jaidbynriew. Most of those who spread such messages are hardly able to understand the consequences of their actions. Just because someone can afford a smart phone and knows to key in a few abusive words does not mean that a person enjoys the right to troll those whose views are different from one’s own. And the less said about those who share WhatsApp messages the better. We are yet to find out who the person is who spread the fake news on May 31 that one of the three boys who were assaulted by some miscreants had died. That was what started the agitation and stone pelting, resulting in curfew that lasts till date and which caused immense loss to the people of Iewduh and its precincts in those crucial days. In the hands of people with evil intentions, social media can be a very dangerous instrument. We have already seen several deaths by lynching which were a result of wrong use of social media. It is important that police keep a tight leash on all social media users. What is a boon and can be used for crowd sourcing and crowd funding for a good cause can also result in dangerous public outbursts. It is time that schools and college teach their wards the positive and negative uses of social media.
Yours etc.,
John R Blah,
Shillong – 3