New Delhi, Aug. 13: President Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee today publicly named an online abuser who had been sending her “dirty” messages, saying she strongly felt such people should be exposed.
“This pervert Partha Mandal is sending me dirty sexual messages. My first reaction was to ignore and block him. But then I thought the silence would encourage him to find other victims. Just blocking and reporting is not enough. I strongly feel such people should be publicly exposed and humiliated,” she wrote in a Facebook post today, attaching a screen shot of the Facebook page of her alleged abuser.
Her post came days after women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi started a campaign on Twitter — #iamtrolledhelp — to help women who have been abused online.
Mukherjee’s tormentor, among 14,590 people who follow her on Facebook, is based in Naihati in Bengal, according to his FB profile. He graduated in 1995 from Madral Sriram Vidyapith in Barrackpore, according to his profile.
Speaking to The Telegraph later, Mukherjee, the chief spokesperson for the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee, said online abusers feel there is safety in anonymity and distance that digital space provides and “we need to shame them using the same medium”.
“I am a public persona, so my Facebook page is public. I accept all friend requests as it is part of my social outreach. Ninety per cent of these people I do not know personally. However, that does not mean that they are going to take advantage of the anonymity and abuse me,” she said.
“By going public with my experience, I want to tell women who face such abuse to come forward and speak about it.”
In a post late this evening, Mukherjee said: “Thanks every one for ur support. I’ve filed a complaint against this Partha Mandal in cyber crime cell of Delhi police. I wud also like to thank the media for taking up this issue.”
It was complaints like this that had compelled Maneka to start the Twitter campaign earlier this month. Since then she has received thousands of emails on an ID created by the ministry. Sources said around 50 have been actionable so far.
