UP Shocker: 16-Year-Old Girl Killed For Not Accepting Facebook Friend Request

Gender-based violence's digital dimension has a significant impact on women's and minors' lives, including their safety, physical and psychological health, livelihoods, and familial ties. It is representative of long-standing societal issues of gender inequality, structural violence, and discrimination against women, as well as current broader trends impeding progress in the overall protection of women's rights and promotion of gender equality.

News reports revealed that a boy killed a 16-year-old girl and injured her mother after her mother refused to accept his friend request on social media, authorities said on Monday. According to Superintendent of Police (city) Martand Prakash Singh, the accused Ravi is a Muzaffarnagar resident. According to Station House Officer Ajay Kaushal, a case has been filed after the girl's father, Tejveer Singh, a security guard at a Faridabad factory, filed a complaint.

16-Year-Old Killed In UP

Ravi reportedly walked over to their house late on Sunday with a wedding card in Nagla Bohra hamlet, which is under the jurisdiction of the Highway police station. Ravi allegedly attacked the girl as she approached him to collect it, according to the SP. When her mother Sunita arrived to help her, he attacked her as well, according to the officer. 

According to the SP, he afterwards tried to murder himself with the knife. Ravi allegedly killed Tejveer's daughter because she refused to accept his Facebook friend request, according to Tejveer's complaint. Sunita and Ravi are being treated, according to Circle Officer Dharmendra Chauhan.

Rape, murder, and theft in Uttar Pradesh plummeted to their lowest levels since 2013, according to India's National Crime Records Bureau. The pattern appears to have persisted, according to preliminary statistics released by Uttar Pradesh police in 2021.

Officials said on Monday that a court in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras district sentenced a 35-year-old man to death in 2021 for raping and killing a 10-year-old child. The girl knew the accused because she lived in the same neighbourhood as his married sister. The event occurred in August when the accused paid a Rakshabandhan visit to his sister.

Suggested Reading: Dear Mr Minister, Are Glass Rooms The Answer to Women’s Safety?

An eight-year-old girl was allegedly strangled to death by an unnamed criminal in a village under the Pasgawan police station in Uttar Pradesh in the same year, according to authorities. They said they found the girl dead in a sugarcane field on Sunday night, with her "salwar" wrapped around her neck. Relatives of the girl have raised concerns about rape and murder.

The male-dominated society employs a variety of techniques to demonstrate its dominance over women. These weapons used by men to demonstrate masculine dominance include eve-teasing, sexual harassment, rape, and domestic abuse against women. This is one of the main reasons why violence is on the rise in India, and women's safety in Uttar Pradesh is a major concern.

Women's safety is a social issue that must be addressed as soon as possible. Women account for more than half of the population, with physical, mental, and social problems. This is a roadblock to the country's development and progress. Every day and minute, women from all walks of life are harassed, raped, assaulted, and violated in numerous locations across the country.

Women's protection is comprehensive in and of itself, but with the rise in violence against women in recent years, we cannot argue that women in our country are entirely protected. Women, in particular, feel frightened when they wish to go out alone. It is quite humiliating for us that the women in our country feel afraid. Is it not disconcerting that women in our country require immense vigilance just to be safe and feel safe?

The views expressed are the author's own.