Kasmin Fernandes (MID-DAY; July 15, 2016)

A Twitter user, who goes by the handle @SRKMyCondom, made singer Sona Mohapatra as well as ex Bigg Boss contestant and celebrity hairstylist Sapna Bhavnani the target of trolling along with a vulgar, photoshopped image of Shah Rukh Khan. Sapna retweeted the offensive image to her 37.7k followers and followed it up with a barrage of tweets on July 12 and 13 with the hashtag, #IamTrolledHelp. The hairstylist even tagged the Mumbai police and Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister for Women and Child Development, in her tweet and complained to Twitter with regard to violent threats and abusive behaviour. The microblogging site, however, didn’t find it in violation of any “rules”.

Says Sapna, “I wanted this account to be suspended. Twitter initially told me it was not violating any guidelines. Since I tagged Menaka Gandhi and the Mumbai Police, this user started tagging them too, but it backfired for him. Ever since I spoke out against Salman Khan for his ‘rape’ comment, I face trolls every day. But, they don’t bother me and I don’t block those profiles; I just report them. However, that picture and the tweet was so vile and distasteful, I tagged Maneka Gandhi in the retweet, but there has been no response from her yet.”

The troll’s account was suspended on July 13 and Sapna posted a jubilant tweet, “Small victory! These accounts cannot just be blocked. They hv to 2 reported. No one has the right 2 speak like that (sic)”. Meanwhile, Sona has retweeted Sapna’s posts. She says, “There is a clear line between freedom of expression and targeted obscene harassment and it is critical that community guidelines be followed in the virtual world, just like the real world. I feel bad that Sapna got dragged into this since I had posted a pic of us in the gym and the Salman controversy was still raging.” SRK was unavailable for comment.