On Sunday, a cyber complaint was filed against a TikTok star named Faizal Siddiqui for promoting acid attacks on women by jilted lovers. Faizal, the brother of another controversial TikTok influencer Amir Siddiqui, boasts of a whopping 13.4 million followers on the Chinese video-sharing social media service.
https://twitter.com/go4ashi/status/1262109300832395270?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Advocate Ashutosh Dubey, too, filed a police complaint with the Mumbai Police. https://twitter.com/iamashu123/status/1262110385211166720?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThe Contentious Video
A 9-second video by Faizal Siddiqui was shared on Twitter by a user named Intrepaid Saffron. The video has, since then, gone viral on social media. In the contentious TikTok video, he can be heard saying, “Usna tumhe chor diya jiska liya tumna Mujhe chora tha“. The loose translation goes as “Did the man, for whom you abandoned me, leave you?” Following the dialogue, he goes on to recreate a disturbing scene of an acid attack with liquid. The face of the victim is then seen covered in scars.
https://twitter.com/IntrepidSaffron/status/1262066309736603653?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwAccording to the data published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there have been 1,483 victims of acid attack between 2014 and 2018. Out of 523 cases that went for trial in 2018, convictions were successful in only 19 cases. Social media videos that glamorise acid attack as a means to avenge lost love has the potential to influence jilted lovers to follow suit in real life.
NCW takes Cognisance
BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga reached out to Rekha Sharma, the Chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW). In a reply to his tweet, Sharma assured that she will take up the case with the police as well as TikTok regarding the dangerous precedent set by such videos.
https://twitter.com/sharmarekha/status/1262184912230264834?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwMisuse of TikTok
The Chinese video-sharing service that has gained prominence in India has been misused, on multiple occasions, by anti-social elements. Amidst the Coronavirus outbreak, several Muslim creators on TikTok were seen encouraging people to flout social distancing guidelines under the garb of Islamic preachings. In one such video, a Muslim man who refuses to shake hands with his friend, owing to the pandemic is rebuked by saying, “You will leave Sunnat (traditional Islamic custom) today and Islam tomorrow due to your fear of death. We are Muslims and therefore we are not afraid to die.”