Bangalore Metro clicks row: Women secretly filmed, FIR filed under voyeurism charges

India Today

An Instagram account sparked outrage after secretly recording women on Bengaluru’s Namma Metro without consent.

Transcript

00:00This now-deleted Instagram account, Bangalore Metro Clicks,

00:03secretly filmed women on the Bengaluru metro without their consent.

00:07It had over 5,000 followers.

00:09No warning, no context, just clips of women going about their day

00:13captioned things like,

00:15The account was very much alive until a user-owned ex flagged it

00:20and tagged Bengaluru police.

00:22That's when it finally got taken down.

00:24The Bengaluru police registered a first information report

00:27under Section 354C of the Indian Penal Code, that's voyeurism.

00:31Voyeurism is watching, capturing, or distributing images

00:34of a woman engaged in a private act without her consent.

00:38Even if it's in a public space,

00:40if the intent is sexual or invasive, it counts.

00:43The investigation is underway to trace the accused, the page handler.

00:49But here's the thing, this isn't a one-off.

00:52In a survey that interviewed 270 women, 57 women,

00:55that's 21.1%, said they had faced at least one form of harassment,

01:00verbal or physical, while commuting.

01:02Shockingly, only four of them reported it to the police.

01:05Additionally, 172 women, which is 63.7%,

01:09said they had been stalked at least once during their travels.

01:12A 2022 India Today DIU report found that in Delhi,

01:1588% of women said they'd faced harassment,

01:18but only 1% went to the police.

01:20So what happened in Bengaluru may have sparked action,

01:23but the larger problem hasn't gone anywhere.

01:26Even Bengaluru MPPC Mohan has now written to the city's Metro Rail Corporation,

01:31asking for stricter action and surveillance to prevent such abuse.

01:34Filming someone without consent is illegal.

01:37Under Section 66E of the IT Act,

01:39capturing or publishing private images without permission

01:42can get you up to three years in jail.

01:44And IPC Section 354C defines voyeurism,

01:47especially when it comes to images of women as a criminal offence.

01:50But when it happens in a public space like a metro,

01:54proving the intention, especially for anonymous accounts, becomes tricky.

01:58Even though these videos violate Meta's own community guidelines,

02:01accounts like these often drag up thousands of views

02:04before anything's taken down.

02:06Now, public transport is supposed to be public.

02:08But for women, it still comes with the risk of being followed,

02:11filmed, posted and fed to the algorithm.

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