Clubhouse Case: Delhi Police Narrow Down Suspects

Delhi Police Cyber Cell officials have said they have “narrowed down on four-five suspects'' who were allegedly involved in the vulgar and dangerous discussion about Muslim women on an app called Clubhouse. A group of right wing affiliated men, and some women, were heard having a deeply disturbing conversation in a leaked audio recording recently. 

The recordings of the offensive discussion revealed vulgar conversations and sexual innuendoes being used to describe Muslim women. The offensive tone bordered on the criminal, where one man claiming to be the son of a Muslim mother and Hindu father sought ‘advice’ on how to ‘get rid’ of his father and sexually ‘assault’ his mother.

The Delhi Police took cognisance of this group on Clubhouse, on Tuesday, after the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) had sent a notice to the Delhi Police seeking an FIR against those who allegedly made the remarks. An FIR under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion) and 354 A (sexual harassment) was registered.

According to a news report in the The Indian Express, the Delhi Police has claimed to have “zeroed in on some 4-5 suspects in the case and is set to question them.” Cyber Cell officials have also “sent notices to the US-based company seeking details of the users/organisers who started the group”. A notice has also been sent to Google Play Store to “keep a check” on such apps, police said that the investigating team has identified a number of participants and found “that all suspects are from adjoining states and not from Delhi. They are all adults. Mostly, the users had accounts under fake names and used aliases on Clubhouse. We heard the conversations on the app and found there were four-five main participants. We are tracing their location and they will be picked up soon,” IE quoted a source.

On Wednesday, another recording of a Clubhouse chat emerged where people were purportedly heard making vulgar remarks. Participants here included some who were also participants in the earlier vulgar discussion. Here a used named "Kira xD" and another user named "Corona" graphically discuss sexual violence against women is openly discussed by a man. 

Trigger Warning: The following tweet contains offensive language and descriptions of sexual violence

Trigger Warning⚠️

Here, "Kira xD" impudently states "that girls should be laid down naked, their whole body impaled with the hot rod". Another user - "Corona" also passes a sexist remark, when this misogynist comment is made, & leaves the room. #RapeCulture #Clubhouse
1/4 https://t.co/0e9ki5iFz0 pic.twitter.com/Rk3WTwZMT3

— Jaimine (@jaiminism) January 19, 2022

According to the IE report, police “suspect a few people might be using dubbed voices to pose as men/women. We will detain them and question them about their aliases.” However, a Clubhouse spokesperson reportedly said, “…there is absolutely no place for hate or abuse on the platform. We invest significantly in keeping our community safe and take swift action at any violation of our policies… If and when a violation of our Community Guidelines is reported and confirmed, swift action is taken i.e. suspended or permanently removed from the platform, depending on the severity of the incident. In this instance, the room was reported and those involved in organising were quickly actioned. As always, we can’t predict what humans will say but we can respond quickly once they violate our guidelines. Community health is a top priority for the platform and we have built features such as room title reporting, blocking, shared block lists, removing replays, and NSFW filters, and improved policies that account for the unique dynamics of real-time voice conversations and group discussions…”

In the @clubhouse app there are groups that openly express vilest of opinions about women.I’d suggest the @GoI_MeitY cracks down on the groups&if app doesn’t support with info take action on them too.India cannot afford to have its youth turn out to be sexist&misogynist citizens.

— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) January 19, 2022

Has action been taken against BJP supporter who abused Punjabis on Clubhouse?

Meanwhile, it is not known if any action has been taken against BJP supporter Sagar Dubey who was identified as the man making communal comments such as “remove all Punjabis from army, defence system,” during a Clubhouse discussion that had gone viral. He is a columnist of the right wing blog OpIndia, and said, “Remove every single Punjabi. Remove all generals, soldiers, from top to the bottom, remove every Punjabi from the army, national defence infrastructure… So that I never have to hear how many of them fucking go to the army.”

"Every single Punjabi ko nikaldo..
Ek baar ye Punjabi nikal jaye na toh it'll come to light how effective they actually were... Sare Generals, sare soldiers, Top level se bottom tak har ek Punjabi ko nikaldo purey Army National defence infrastructure se"pic.twitter.com/Rto3c2SNNe

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) January 6, 2022

According to news reports, Dubey was followed on Twitter by union minister Smriti Irani and Nupur J Sharma, ‘editor’ of the website OpIndia, but he deleted his account on the microblogging site after the video clip went viral.