The Mumbai police have arrested a 23-year-old man from Hyderabad for giving rape threat to Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma’s daughter on social media. As per reports, the man has been identified as one Ramnaesh Srinivas Akuvathini. Ramnagesh was taken into custody on Wednesday, November 10 by the cyber cell of Mumbai Police.
As per reports, the accused is an Engineering graduate from IIT Hyderabad who had worked in the software section of a food delivery platform. He had allegedly made rape threats to Indian Men’s cricket team captain Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma’s infant daughter.
After the massive trolling against the Indian team captain turned ugly owing to repeated match loss in the T20 World Cup, the Delhi Women’s Commission had taken cognisance of some vile, violent social media posts and had asked the Delhi Police to look into it.
The DCW headed by AAP’s Swati Maliwal had sent a letter to the Delhi Police seeking a response over rape threats made to the celebrity couple’s daughter.
Ramnagesh’ arrest has been made by the cybercrime cell of the Mumbai Police. The Mumbai Police has brought him to Mumbai where he will be presented before a court, as per reports. The Mumbai Police has been tracking the abusive posts against Kohli and his family as the cricketer and his actress wife Anushka are both residents of Mumbai.
As per NDTV’s report, Ramnagesh had changed his Twitter handle soon after posting the threats and had pretended to be a Pakistani cricket fan (@criccrazygirl). He also has another Twitter handle identifying as a Telugu speaking girl. However, the Mumbai Police had reportedly been tracking his online activities. Ramnagesh had reportedly left his job and has been preparing to go to the USA for higher studies.
Kohli fans had shared abusive tweets against a social media user’s minor son
While the threats against Kohli and Anushka’s daughter saw prompt action by police personnel owing to their celebrity status, some social media users who had shared abusive, vile tweets against a common man’s minor child have apparently escaped without facing any consequences for their actions.
A Twitter user named Gappistan Radio had criticised Virat Kohli for some of his statements and activities over the Shami controversy after the India-Pakistan match. Though it was documented by many platforms that the abusive comments against Md Shami had originated from Pakistani accounts and were wrongly highlighted in the media as ‘Indian Hindus abusing Shami for match loss’, Kohli had made statements condemning the trolling of Shami. Gappistan Radio had shared some tweets criticising Kohli for defaming India and for his general antics against Hindu festivals.
However, Kohli’s fans descended on Gappistan Radio’s timeline and started sending vile abuses to him and even his child. Gappistan Radio shared a screenshot of comments made on Instagram on the photo of his 7-year-old son. The comments contained unspeakable abuses from a fan of Virat Kohli, directed at the child himself.
Gappistan Radio also said that a fan of Kohli was also sending him photos of his son, which came across as a not-so-subtle threat. The Twitter user said that he had to disable his account on Instagram due to the abuses he was receiving from fans of Virat Kohli. He even said he would deactivate his Twitter account because of the threats he was getting against his child from Virat Kohli fans.
However, prompt police action and DCW cognisance over online trolling seem to be more sensitive towards celebrities and people of high status. The vile threats directed towards a commoner and his child have got nobody arrested.
