Child body orders deletion of minor’s video from social media

The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Anantnag district has directed social media users to delete a video of a minor girl that recently went viral following an event organised by an edtech platform.

A controversy broke out after the video, showing an allegedly inappropriate gesture, spread widely on social media.

“As such, the Child Welfare Committee, Anantnag, has received an application from the minor (name withheld) whose video was circulated through various social media handles during the event held by Physics Wallah at Anantnag. The minor submitted that the gesture has been misinterpreted and the said video has been misused to create content on social media handles, which violates the right to privacy and amounts to an act of abuse,” the committee stated.

It added that several social media handlers and individual accounts had circulated the clip, causing distress to the minor and exposing her to “immoral and threatening comments”.

“The undue circulation of the video related to the minor during the event held by Physics Wallah at Anantnag shall be considered an offence against the child under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, and Rules, 2016, along with other applicable laws. Contravening these provisions shall be punishable with imprisonment,” the statement read.

The CWC further directed “all social media handlers, individual account holders, or others” to delete the content immediately and refrain from disseminating it further, warning that any violation would be dealt with as per law.

Later, another video went viral showing the minor apologising on camera while sitting beside her mother with her face covered. “I agree that I made a mistake, but the religion asks to protect the honour of a girl and not ruin her dignity,” she said.

She also claimed that she had attempted suicide due to the stress caused by the viral video. “My parents stopped me from taking such a step. I urged the social media influencers to delete my video. One of them deleted it but uploaded another video stating that I apologised to him,” she added.