Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. File image.
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), on August 14, has asked Facebook India (trust & safety) head Satya Yadav to appear before it on August 17 at 5 pm via video conference along with details of action taken against Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s Instagram profile for posting a video revealing identify of a ‘minor girl victim’s family’.
This comes after NCPCR wrote a letter to Facebook on August 13, wherein it said that it came across a video posted on the Instagram profile of Gandhi wherein the identity of the victim minor girl’s family was disclosed.
In this video, the faces of the father and the mother of the deceased girl can be clearly seen, which is in violation of the prescribed provisions of law, it added.
Instagram, a photo and video sharing social networking platform, is owned by Facebook.
The NCPCR asked Facebook for taking appropriate action against the Instagram profile of Gandhi over violation of provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, and the Indian Penal Code, and demanded the removal of the video from the platform.
Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, prohibits the disclosure of identity of a child in any form of media and Section 23 of the POCSO Act, 2012, also states that no information or photo of a child should be published in any form of media which could reveal the identity of the child.
This information under Section 23 of the POCSO Act includes his/her name, address, photograph, family details, school, neighbourhood or any other particulars which may lead to disclosure of identity of the child.
Therefore, posting of the video of the minor victim’s family on social media platform-Instagram has been observed by the Commission to be a violation of Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, Section 23 of the POCSO Act, 2012, Section 228A of the IPC and the guidelines of the Hon’ble Court as well, it said.
“In view of the same, the Commission deems it appropriate to take suo-moto cognisance under Section 13(1) and notice under Section 14 of the CPCR Act, 2005 in this matter,” the NCPCR said.
“Accordingly, the link to the Instagram video is being forwarded for taking appropriate action against the Instagram profile of Rahul Gandhi for violation of provisions of JJ Act, 2015, POCSO Act, 2012 and IPC and removal of the Instagram video from the platform,” it added.
Gandhi met the family of the nine-year-old girl last week, asserted that he was with them on the path to justice and said he would “not back down even an inch”.
Later, he posted a picture of his meeting with the girl’s parents on Twitter and wrote in Hindi, “Parents’ tears are saying only one thing their daughter, the daughter of this country, deserves justice. And I am with them on this path to justice.”
The girl died under mysterious circumstances when she went to get water from a cooler at a crematorium in the Old Nangal area in southwest Delhi. The girl’s parents alleged that she was raped and her body forcibly cremated by a crematorium priest who had falsely claimed that she was electrocuted.
Hundreds of locals, including the victim’s parents, have been staging a protest near the site of the incident, demanding capital punishment for the accused.
On August 4, NCPCR wrote to Twitter, asking it to take action against the handle of Gandhi for posting the photo of the family. The microblogging site blocked the account of Gandhi following the complaint. Twitter has said it has followed the due process as Gandhi’s tweet on the family of the victim was against its rules and the law.