Google, Gurgaon:  Police want computer address
By Nitin Paul

Local police have approached the Gurgaon-based offices of Google for collecting documentary evidence against the techie who had posted lewd remarks against a girl  studying law on its community site Orkut recently. Google owns the social networking web portal Orkut on which the techie Sameer had posted coarse remarks about the legal student.

The engineer had later corrected his mistake and had withdrawn his remarks after getting to know of the police action against him.  During a visit to the DLF Cybercity-based Google office last week, the Station Head Officer (SHO) of City Police Station, Devender Singh, made a written request to Google officials for providing the IP address of the computer  from where the vulgar messages were generated and posted on the community site of the law college on Orkut on September 23. The police officials were keen on identifying the exact name and address of the person who identified himself as Sameer on the portal. According to the cops, the accused is also known by a different name amongst his friends.

One of the officials at the Google office in Gurgaon, Vinod Pandey, claimed that the police request had been forwarded to their Bangalore-based office.  According to Vinod, such information could only be provided from Bangalore and not from their Gurgaon offices.  

However, the furious mother of the victim is not content with the ‘snail-paced’ action. She alleges that the police were not doing their best to investigate the culprit who posted demeaning comments about her daughter.  She alleged that the police not only booked the techie Sameer very late under the IT Act, but it also failed to arrest him before he could get anticipatory bail from a local court in the same case. She alleged that techie’s counsel misled the court and presented Sameer as a student, not as a software engineer,  to get bail orders.
 
Perturbed over alleged police apathy, the mother who happens to be a Municipal Councilor reached the Gurgaon office of Google on October 16. She had also taken an Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) from the police station along with her to press her demand on Google to provide all the documentary proof to the police as soon as possible. The officials at the Gurgaon office of Google assured the victim’s mother that a police request had already been forwarded to their Bangalore-based office. They said that the Bangalore-office would again be reminded of the request.

However, when contacted by this correspondent, the Google spokesperson at Bangalore office,  Roli Aggarwal,  said that she was not aware of the specific incident related to the Gurgaon police request and said that she could get back on this after talking to the relevant department.  But she said that Google would be more than happy to cooperate with the police on the matter under existing laws and within the company policy framework.

Roli Aggarwal also said that Orkut was a social networking platform  run by Google. She said the users created their own community sites and interacted with each other through messages etc,  and on which Google did not interfere. “However, Orkut has online tools available on it that could be accessed directly by the users to know about any users misusing and abusing the platform by posting lewd remarks. By using these tools, one can get to know of the IP address and other details of the person abusing the site. However, if the users report abuse to Google, the company can act to remove such offending comments,” Roli Aggarwal added.

(Techgoss.com has run the following story earlier this month)

Orkut:  Cyber crime case for lewd comments
By Nitin Paul

A municipal councilor gives Gurgaon police lessons in cyber crime.  It is also illustrative of how Indian mothers will do everything in their power to protect their children.

Gurgaon police have finally registered a cyber crime case against a software engineer for posting lewd remarks against a female law student on the Orkut social network community site. It took the police of this IT city more than eight days to upgrade the simple case of ‘insulting the modesty of a girl’ to a cyber crime.

The police had earlier booked the youth for insulting the modesty of the girl under the relatively simple section 506 of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) only. Before this, the police had filed a relatively less serious case of 'making obscene remarks in public' under section 294 of IPC against the techie Sameer.
 
But it was only after the mother of the girl who happens to be a municipal councilor, raised a hue and cry and ran from pillar to post convincing the police officials that it was actually a Cyber Crime, that the police were forced to change their mind and book the youth Sameer under section 67 of IT (Information Technology) Act 2000. As per this section, anyone who publishes or transmits in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest, is liable to be charged under this law.
 
This section also provisions for punishment on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and with a  fine which may extend to one lakh rupees.  In the event of a second or subsequent conviction,  with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and also with a fine which may extend to two lakh rupees.
 
According to the cops the cyber crime case was filed by the city police station and was handed over to the ACP (West) for further investigations. As per the provisions of the IT Act 2000, the investigation of the cyber crime case could only be done by a police officer with at least of the rank of ACP (Asst Comm. of Police).
 
The woman municipal councilor – the mother of the law student whose name was posted on Orkut and subjected to lewd remarks by this software engineer, had been running from pillar to post urging the Gurgaon police officials to register a case of cyber crime against the software engineer Sameer.