Cecille Rodrigues
Two days after former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and reality dance show contestant Cecille Rodrigues alleged stalking and sexual harassment by a social media user, the Panaji women's police station has filed an FIR against the accused identified as Estonio Almeida. Almeida was unavailable for comment.
According to the FIR, Almeida has been booked under Sections 354 A (sexual harassment) and 509 (outraging modesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
"The accused person harassed and passed sexually coloured remarks on the complainant from his cellphone through WhatsApp messenger and thereby insulted and outraged the modesty of the complainant," the FIR read.
The complaint was lodged on June 25 by Rodrigues, a popular contemporary dance-trainer from Goa, who had also posted a video on social media narrating the harassment meted to her by Almeida over Facebook messenger and WhatsApp.
The post had gone viral and prompted several other women to put up screenshots of similar efforts made by Almeida to chat them up.
In her complaint to the police, Rodrigues said that the accused had called her to enquire about Zumba classes which she conducted and after that started "harassing, irritating and stalking her with several messages using lewd and vulgar comments on Facebook messenger and WhatsApp".
"Initially, considering that I was extremely pre-occupied, I did not read all his messages and in fact ignored most of his comments, thinking he was just another fan I didn't know," the complaint states, adding that she feared for the safety of her minor son.
Rodrigues had further claimed in her complaint that she was forced to approach the police when around midnight on June 22, the accused began harassing her "on WhatsApp in the wee hours of the night, using lewd and vulgar comments".
Rodrigues was a first runner-up in the reality dance show 'Super Mom' in 2013 and had unsuccessfully contested from the Taleigao Assembly constituency in the 2017 state elections, managing 1,976 votes.
Almeida was not available for comment despite efforts made by this correspondent to reach him over phone, WhatsApp and Facebook.
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