Sharmishtha faces online harassment, files police complaint

NEW DELHI, Aug 13: Sharmishtha Mukherjee, Delhi Congress spokesperson and the daughter of President Pranab Mukherjee, today claimed a man harassed her by sending lewd messages and put up screenshots of the texts on her Facebook page.

She lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime unit of Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EoW).

“We are in the process of registering a case and launching investigation to catch the culprit,” said Anyesh Roy, DCP (Cyber Crime).

Police said the “lewd” messages were sent to the complainant through Facebook Messenger. The profile of the sender mentions him as a resident of Nauhati in Hooghly, West Bengal.

Sharmishtha said she received the messages last night and decided to go public thinking her silence will encourage the sender to harass other women.

“The person is completely unknown to me and he sent me dirty sexual messages last night. I first thought of ignoring him and blocking him but then (I) thought my silence will encourage him to find other victims,” she said, identifying the man as Partha Mandal.

In her Facebook post, she said, “I strongly feel such ppl shd be publicly exposed & humiliated. I’m posting screenshots of his profile & messages he sent me. I’m also tagging him. Pls share this post & tag this rat as a msg that these pervert acts will not be taken lightly (sic).”

“Police might have thousands of such cases with them. I will fight as an ordinary woman and do not require any preferential treatment as a daughter of the President of India. Police must work all such cases with equal diligence,” she said. (PTI)