The Delhi Police on Wednesday arrested an 18-year-old from Noida and said he was an administrator of an Instagram group in which members discussed raping their classmates and made lurid remarks while sharing their photos.
The arrest came a day after investigators said the group, “Bois Locker Room”, was found to have 22 members – two of them adults and studying in colleges – after they took into custody a 15-year-old boy over the chat messages.
After the arrest of the 18-year-old on Wednesday, a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity: “He has told us that he had created the group in the first week of April and added a close group of friends from Noida and Delhi. He then made some of them admin of the same group. Those new admins further added their friends from their schools and coaching centres and colleges in Delhi and NCR.” The officer said that the 18-year-old recently took his Class 12 examinations at a school in Noida.
On the arrest of the 15-year-old a day earlier, the official said: “The boy was accused by some other members of the group of being the admin of the group. While the boy has denied being an admin, we have got to know that there was more than one admin.” Though apprehended by the police, the Delhi schoolboy is currently with his parents. “The juvenile justice board is currently not open for these cases. So, we are letting him be with his parents on the condition that he wouldn’t leave the city without our permission,” the officer said.
Confirming the arrest of the 18-year-old teenager on Wednesday, Anyesh Roy, deputy commissioner of police (cybercrime), said his department was still waiting for details from Instagram. “We had asked them for information about the alleged group and its members. The report from the platform is awaited.”
On Tuesday, a statement by Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, said they take such issues “very seriously”. An official said that Instagram was in touch with the Delhi Police.
“The devices of the identified members of the group have been seized and sent for forensic analysis… We are ascertaining the roles of other members,” Roy said.
Until the details from Instagram are provided, investigators said they were relying on “material evidence” such as screenshots of the conversations and the versions of the adult suspects who were being interrogated and the interview of the minors.
“Till Tuesday, we knew of 22 members in that group. Today, we have got to know of five more members, taking the total to 27. While we know all of them by their names, we have so far got the details of 14 of them. Six of them are adults. Eight others are minors,” said a third officer, who requested anonymity.
