Guwahati, June 4: A video going viral on social media, showing "interrogation" of an alleged sex worker who is believed to have been stripped naked by an unidentified person, has left rights activists shocked and angry.
The woman, possibly in her late 20s or early 30s, speaks to the interrogator in Assamese whom she refers to as "sir". The interrogator has a non-Assamese accent. Both the victim and the "interrogator" referred to an Orang dhaba where she was with her client who, however, is not visible in the video. The device with which the video was made kept panning up and down to record graphic details.
Though the video is going viral on social media, Orang police station personnel said they were unaware of any such incident.
"Orang Dhaba at Nislamari had downed shutters more than a year ago. We are not aware why," an official of Orang police station said.
The dhaba was located on National Highway 15, connecting Guwahati with North Lakhimpur on the north bank of the Brahmaputra. Orang National Park is situated about 15km from Nislamari, about 150km north of Guwahati.
Reacting to the video being shared on social media, Assamese actress and activist Akashitora demanded that the person who interrogated the woman, recorded and shared her video should be punished. "This video reflects the dirty mindset of society. Even as a sex worker, a woman has the right to live with dignity. The interrogator should be punished," she said.
An officer in CID's cyber forensic laboratory here told The Telegraph that the person who recorded and shared the video could be traced by identifying the device used.
"The person who recorded and shared it can be identified by going through the call details and the IMEI number of the device. Based on interrogation of the person who recorded it, the interrogator should be identified and his voice should be recorded. Then the voice can be matched with that in the video through voice analysis," said the officer.
The voice analysis facility, however, is not available in Assam and police here normally take the help of Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Chandigarh. "We had done so while cracking the GS Road molestation case in 2012," he said.
Guwahati-based cyber crime lawyer Neelotpal Deka said the police should have registered a case suo motu as the obscene video had gone viral.
The accused can face jail up to seven years under 67A and 67B of IT Act 2000 if he/she is found guilty of transmitting the obscene video.
In the video the woman names her husband and her village at Dhekiajuli in Sonitpur district. The interrogator, for his part asked her, using slang, if she had come there to sell herself.
"I came here for the money," she replied in the video.
While it is unclear if her interrogator was a policeman or any other security person, the video does not show her client who the woman refers to as " eu" meaning him.
When asked to comment by The Telegraph about circulation of the video showing the woman, the programme manager of Utsah, a Guwahati-based NGO working for children and human rights, Megha Kashyap, termed it a gross violation of human rights.
"Strong action against such acts is required to drive home a message to those resorting to such criminal acts," she added.