Two photos and the police still unable to trace the culprits.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
A 21-year-old woman committed suicide in Salem, Tamil Nadu on Monday after a half-naked morphed photo of her was allegedly posted on Facebook by some unidentified people.
The deceased, A Vinupriya, 21, was dejected when she found one of her fake photos on Facebook on June 23. The people who posted the picture had tagged her on the post and the phone number of her father was also added to that, reported The Times of India.
Vinupriya’s father Annadurai, 50, had filed a complaint with the superintendent of police (SP), Salem district, Amit Kumar Singh, on the same day asking to identify and arrest the people who committed the crime.
The SP forwarded the complaint to Magudanchavadi police station and they started an investigation. A youth who was suspected to be a part of the team who allegedly posted her photo was arrested during the investigation. But the police let him go after they realized that he didn’t have any involvement in the crime.
The police were about to seek the help of the cyber cell to locate the IP address of the computer from which the pictures were uploaded. But, on Monday, another photo of the same kind appeared on Facebook. As the girl was tagged to the post, she saw the photos.
Being not able to bear the harassment, she hanged herself Monday afternoon at her house when her parents were away. The parents saw her body hanging when they returned and they rushed her to Salem government super specialty hospital. But the doctors declared that she was brought dead.
“A suicide note was found in her room, in which she stated she could not deal with the predicament, more so after her parents suspected she had something to do with the photos uploaded on Facebook,” Sankari DSP Kandasamy told The Times of India.
The family of Vinupriya refused to accept her body after autopsy alleging that the police were responsible for her death.
“If they had taken action against the miscreants, they may not have uploaded the second picture and she may still be alive,” Annadurai was quoted as saying by the daily.
He also alleged that the police demanded a bribe from him to start an inquiry. A graduate in chemistry, Vinupriya was looking for a job.