A Delhi police investigation has revealed that one of the screenshots from the ‘Bois Locker Room’ row involved a girl who took on the fake identity of a boy named ‘Siddharth’. She reportedly did so to ‘test’ the reaction of the male receiver of the message.
The police say that this was the screenshot of a one-to-one Snapchat conversation, where a person named 'Siddharth' suggested a plan of aggravated sexual assault of a girl (the sender's real identity) to the other person. This screenshot had gone viral along with the screenshots of the Instagram chats that led to much uproar last week.
The police stated that the alleged Snapchat conversation is actually between a girl (sender) and a boy (receiver) in which the girl is sending chat messages through a fictional Snapchat account named 'Siddharth'.
“Using the fake identity of a male person, she suggested in the chat, a plan to sexually assault herself. The purpose of her sending such chat messages using a fake, fictional identity was to check the reaction of the receiver boy and the strength of his character, especially when someone talks bad things about the girl herself,” a note from the police said.
The police stated that the receiver of the message, who is also a juvenile, declined to participate and stopped further communication. The boy then took a screenshot of the chat and reported it to his friends, including the girl, about whom the hypothetical conversation of sexual assault took place.
“The girl, being aware of the fact that the account of 'Siddharth' that is suggesting her sexual assault was a fake one, created by her own self, she did not report it to anyone. One of the other recipients of the screenshot, however, posted it as an Instagram story for some time, from where it started circulating in connected social media accounts of friends, schoolmates, etc,” the police said.
When the Bois Locker Room Instagram screenshots started circulating on social media, the Snapchat conversation also got mixed with it since it was freely available in different student groups, the police added.
The Snapchat screenshot that had gone viral along with the Instagram chats.
The Hindu reported that since both of the persons in the screenshots are juveniles, no case will be registered against either of them
Meanwhile, the investigation of the Bois Locker Room Instagram group is still going on. The police stated that they are making efforts to identify and examine the rest of the group members at the earliest.
In the Bois Locker Room case, one juvenile was identified and apprehended immediately after the registration of the case and the mobile phone used in the commission of the offence was seized, the police said. The 15-year-old was taken into custody after the disturbing screenshots of the Bois Locker Room group conversations went viral on social media. In the screenshots, members of the group were seen sharing private pictures of underage girls, some of whom were their classmates, without their knowledge, and posting crude comments that ranged from objectification to body shaming.
The police then collected details of other members of the group from their educational institutions, as well as from friends and acquaintances. The Instagram group’s admin, a resident of Noida, was arrested a day after the case was registered. So far, more than 24 students have been examined or interviewed and connected devices have been seized and sent for forensic analysis.
“Partial information about three Instagram accounts have been shared by the intermediary. Further technical details are being collected. The devices seized during the investigation have been sent for forensic analysis. Further investigation is underway,” the police added in the press note.