It has been more than two days since Bois Locker Room—a private Instagram group chat where teenagers from south Delhi schools were found indulged in puerile objectification of female body parts and talking about gang-rape of school girls—sparked an outrage on social media.
After a school boy was taken into custody on Monday by the cyber cell of Delhi police, an alleged girls' version of the locker room was seen floating around the web.
Shubham Singh, an ethical hacker associated with the Mumbai police and founder of Cyber World Academy, is, however, not convinced about the authenticity of the girls' locker room.
"You see, the day Bois Locker Room was discovered and deactivated, a Bois Locker Room 2.0 came up that very night. This had no involvement of the original perpetrators. Some people just made it up for fame and followers," says Singh who sees the girls' version as a similar spin-off.
Singh has been tagged in accounts named girls' locker room but he is still trying to ascertain their genuineness. "I don't trust these new accounts now. The screenshots look edited and tampered with from private accounts. The genuine victims should come forward and furnish information to the relevant authorities. Their identities will be protected," says Singh.
Around four days ago, Singh had received screenshots from two female students in Delhi. One of the minors was scared her nudes might be leaked by her ex-boyfriend who was a member of the Bois Locker Room. Singh had verified the screenshots and traced them to the members of the original group. He later notified a senior IPS officer in Delhi.
"The real victims of this group are not ready to come out and testify at this point. Even the girl who first posted about the Bois Locker room was not directly connected to the group," says Singh who continues to receive proof from friends and acquaintances of the original Bois Locker Room which had 15-20 members.
Singh points out that similar abusive conversations have been taking place on Reddit and Snapchat for the last one month. "I have been getting so many messages complaining about morphed photos and vulgar chats on Reddit threads. These are confession-type conversations," says Singh. Bois Locker Room was formed towards the end of March.
However, noted cybercrime investigator and data privacy consultant Ritesh Bhatia has independently verified the authenticity of girls locker room. "Yes, it exists. On May 5, a girl who was badly humiliated in the group a year ago, had reached out for help to inquire about legal remedies," he said.
