Protestors of stalking are victimised

A twelve-year-old girl who was regularly stalked by a local youth in a village in Habiganj had the courage to file a complaint against him at the Union Parishad. For this the stalker and his friends stormed into the girl's house and severely injured her mother and elder sister. The police have said they could not trace the culprit or his cohorts. In another village in Rangpur a 50 year-old grandmother was attacked with acid by a stalker when she tried to prevent him from abducting her teenaged granddaughter. 

In both cases local youths were the stalkers and in both incidents the protestors of the crime were victimized. This indicates that despite fairly stringent anti-stalking legal recourses, these culprits are being able to sexually harass young girls and get away with the crime. Anyone trying to lodge an official complaint against them or physically trying to stop them becomes a target of vicious attacks.

Stalking has led to victims committing suicide, families being threatened or attacked and young girls being deprived of their right to live without fear. The High Court has expressly declared stalking to be illegal and has asked the government to consider it as sexual harassment and replacing the term 'eve teasing' with it. It has given directives to the government to set up cells at every police station across the country to monitor and deal with stalking cases. Under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act 2000, the maximum sentence for sexual harassment is ten years imprisonment, the minimum three years. Stalking must be incorporated into the Act as per the High Court directive.