Online harassment is prosecutable, and the framework improved considerably with the new criminal codes and the IT Rules. The difficulty is usually evidence and follow-through, not law.
Preserve first, react second
Before you block anyone, capture everything: full-screen screenshots showing the profile URL, handle, date and time; the message thread in full rather than selected lines; call logs; and where possible screen recordings. Blocking first and complaining later destroys the record. Keep the original device.
Two habits decide whether a complaint goes anywhere. Keep a single dated log in one document: date, time, platform, handle, URL, what was said, what you did. A pattern over weeks is what turns unpleasant messages into stalking or criminal intimidation, and the log is what shows it. And do not move the material off the original device or edit the images: under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 an electronic record has to be produced with a certificate from the person in charge of the device, which is straightforward while the phone is intact and awkward once the content lives only in a forwarded file. Our note on how to report a cyber crime in India covers what to attach and in what format.
The offences that usually apply
- Stalking, Section 78 BNS, which expressly covers monitoring a woman's use of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication, despite a clear indication of disinterest.
- Criminal intimidation, Sections 351 BNS, for threats.
- Insulting the modesty of a woman, Section 79 BNS, covering words, gestures and acts intended to insult modesty, including by electronic means.
- Section 67 and 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, for publishing or transmitting obscene or sexually explicit material.
- Section 66C and 66D IT Act, for identity theft and cheating by personation using a computer resource.
Section 66A of the IT Act, which covered "grossly offensive" online messages, was struck down as unconstitutional in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015). Police occasionally still cite it, and the Supreme Court has had to repeat directions to stop that. If an FIR against you invokes Section 66A, that is a straightforward ground for quashing.
The parallel routes
- Platform grievance officer. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 require every significant intermediary to appoint an India-based grievance officer, acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within seven days, with faster timelines for certain content.
- Grievance Appellate Committee, if the platform's response is unsatisfactory.
- cybercrime.gov.in or the local cyber cell. Registration is mandatory where a cognizable offence is disclosed.
- A civil suit for injunction and damages, where the harasser is identifiable and the harm is to reputation or business.
- Full-page screenshots showing the URL, handle, date and time, not cropped images
- The profile URL and, where available, the numeric user ID
- An unedited export or archive of the messages, kept on the original device
- A dated log of every incident, in sequence
- The platform report reference numbers and the replies received
- Any earlier connection between you and the person, which goes to motive
- A certificate for electronic records under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam
What the complaint should actually say
Most complaints fail on drafting, not on law. Write it as a chronology, not as an account of how you felt. Say who you are and how the person is connected to you, if at all. Set out the incidents in date order, each with the platform, the handle, the URL and the words used, quoted rather than described. State expressly that you communicated disinterest and on what date, because indifference to a clear indication of disinterest is an element of the stalking provision. Then identify what you want: registration of the case, preservation and production of the subscriber and log records from the platform and the telecom operator, and seizure of the device. Paginate the annexures. Ask for a copy of the complaint bearing the station's seal and date, or keep the portal acknowledgement number.
If the harasser is anonymous, ask the investigating officer to seek subscriber details from the intermediary. Platforms retain that material for a limited period, which is why a complaint filed on the day is worth more than a better argued one filed three months later. In Bengaluru the physical complaint goes to the jurisdictional CEN police station, and where a woman is the complainant you may ask that the statement be recorded by a woman officer.
If the police will not act
Escalate in writing to the Superintendent of Police, then apply to the Magistrate under Section 175(3) BNSS for a direction to register and investigate. Take the preserved evidence with you.
Annex the complaint you handed in, the escalation to the senior officer, and proof of delivery of both. A refusal that is not on paper is very hard to place before a court.
Run the civil route in parallel
A criminal complaint punishes; it does not usually make the material disappear. A civil suit can, through an injunction restraining further publication and a direction to the intermediary to take down specific URLs, and where the harasser is unidentified courts pass orders against unnamed defendants and direct disclosure of subscriber information. Where the harassment has moved into morphed images or synthetic audio and video, there is a further line of relief: courts have restrained the unauthorised use of a person's name, image, likeness and voice, and our note on personality rights and deepfakes in India sets out how those orders are framed.
Two warnings. Do not reply in kind, because an abusive message from you turns a clean complaint into a cross case, which is the commonest way these matters end in stalemate. And reduce your own exposure while it runs: lock down old accounts, take the phone number and address off public profiles, and check what a search of your name returns. Our guide to protecting yourself from cyber fraud covers the account hygiene that stops the same person returning by another route.