Bois Locker Room

Bois Locker Room was an Instagram scandal, allegedly involving a chat room of teenage boys from Delhi. It was started on May 3, 2020, when a member leaked chats from the group, including obscene images of around 15 girls. The controversy flared after several social media users led by Instagram user Niska Nagpal posted screenshots of the leaked chats and morphed photos of young girls on Instagram and Twitter. On Sunday, May 6, 2020 the hashtag #boyslockerroom was retweeted over 30,000 times. The Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights took notice of the issue and issued various notices to Instagram as well as Delhi Police for further information on the scandal.
Rape "Culture" in Schools.
Members of the group, said to be students of the 11th and 12th grades in some of Delhi's top schools, posted photos of teenage girls without their consent, along with offensive comments. A number of conversations purportedly showed members talking about sexually assaulting their classmates. This sparked debates and controversy about the existence of rape-culture and the normalization of rape, misogyny and objectification in schools. According to social media accounts that posted the screenshots, members of "Bois Locker Room" threatened to leak nude photographs of the women who reported them. After the revelation of the incident, many social media users as well as leading media outlets started to report that the "Bois Locker Room" Instagram chat group, which had been exposed, had a member named Siddharth who had started a conversation about the gang rape of a minor girl and that Siddharth was actually a girl disguised as a male. However it was later revealed by the police that Siddharth was connected to a different chat group on Snapchat and had nothing to do with the one on Instagram. Police also revealed that they had identified all 27 members and admins of the Instagram chat group as male. 
On May 4, 2020, another group was created by the name of ‘Bois Locker Room 2.0’; however it was shortly deleted. Nagpal had earlier also leaked chats from another Instagram group called ‘Jai ka shirt skrt gang’, whose members were found to have talked about ‘raping girls’.
Manav Singh's Suicide.
Manav Singh was a 17-year-old boy from Gurugram. He was studying in the 12th grade when he was accused of sexual assault by a girl (minor) on social media. This accusation surfaced as #BoisLockerRoom began trending all over Twitter and Instagram.
According to the police, on May 4, 2020, Manav jumped off the balcony of his flat located on the 11th floor of Carlton estate residential complex. Manav allegedly committed suicide after his friends began harassing him on social media platforms for being named in the girl's “MeToo” Instagram post. The girl alleged that she was molested by the teenager in the basement of her apartment complex two years ago. She wrote that she had revealed it now because she was tired after having kept it a secret for the last two years. The police initiated an investigation under Section 174 to enquire and report on the suicide as per the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
It was later discovered that the accuser had deleted her messages. The allegations were never substantiated as the victim never came forward. Manav Singh's parents moved an application before Gurugram police seeking thorough investigation of the matter and
filed a complaint against the accuser. On June 7, 2020, Manav's father filed an application under section 156(3) in the Gurgaon District and Sessions Court for monitoring the investigation. MM Gurgaon Court issued a notice to the police for filing a Status Report. The police filed his status report and, on July 15, 2020, issued a notice to Instagram and Snapchat for production of documents. MM Gurgaon Court ordered that a status report be filed regarding the case every 15 days until the filing of a final report.
Reaction to Manav's death.
Manav Singh's death elicited mixed reactions.
Rishi Singh, Manav Singh's brother, took to Instagram to claim that his brother was innocent. While defending his brother Manav, Rishi narrated the circumstances that compelled his brother to take such "drastic" steps. He urged that his brother should not be held guilty of a crime he did not commit. He also mentioned that the accusations made were of a different incident which was not related to the conversations in the 'Bois Locker Room' group chat.
This incident was followed by opinions from several sources on how character assassinations on social media were not justified when a mob acts as judge, jury and executioner.
Others argued by posting stories on Instagram that the accuser should not be blamed for Manav Singh's death. Reacting to this, Manav's brother, Rishi Singh wrote, "She didn’t repent for a second what she wrote which not only led to a young kids demise but also shattered his family’s life".
Investigation by Delhi Police.
Despite the ongoing lock down in place for COVID-19, the investigation was reportedly expedited with help from Swati Maliwal. As of May 6, 2020, one student responsible for starting Bois Locker Room was arrested and 15 other students from prominent Delhi schools were questioned. The police also identified 27, mostly underage, members of the group.
On May 10, 2020, at 7:38 PM, Saurabh Trivedi, a journalist from The Hindu broke the news on Twitter in a series of tweets where he wrote that a minor girl used a fake identity of another "Sidharth" (a minor boy) and suggested a plan to sexually assault herself in the group chat. Saurabh Trivedi wrote, "The purpose of her sending such chat messages using a fake, fictional identity was to check the reaction of the receiver boy and the strength of his character.". He also wrote that, "Police said no action will be taken against the girl as she is juvenile and it is a childish act".
The Snapchat conversation was initially believed to be a conversation among boys who were a part of the Bois Locker Room group. After investigation, none of the 27 boys identified were found to be part of any conversation on Snapchat.
As of May 11, 2020, the police had arrested the group administrator of the #BoisLockerRoom from Noida and apprehended a juvenile who was in the group and they had confiscated the mobile phones of all the suspects. Of the 27 boys, 24 had been examined, two were out of reach and the details of one more are awaited.