Mumbai: Rhiya Yadav Ahir, the 27-year-old Mumbai model who shot to nationwide attention after standing in front of a police van during a student protest in Dadar, has approached the Maharashtra Cyber Cell with a complaint alleging she has faced sustained online harassment, bullying and defamation in the aftermath of the viral moment.
Ahir’s actions during the July 22 protest at Shivaji Park drew widespread attention across social media. She filed an online complaint on Saturday and is set to meet a senior Cyber Cell officer on Monday, seeking an FIR against those she says have been targeting her online.
Ahir said the abuse began almost as soon as clips of the protest started doing the rounds online.
“There has been consistent harassment, bullying, abuse and slut-shaming. Right now it is online, but it can grow into something much larger. I don’t want my parents to be affected by this,” she told Hindustan Times.
Looking back at why she stepped in during the protest, Ahir said she simply felt citizens were being treated unfairly and couldn’t stay silent. Now, she says, she’s applying that same instinct to her own situation.
“I stood up for citizens and spoke against what I believed was wrong. Similarly, I also have to stand up for myself and make sure this abuse does not go unanswered,” she said.
Ahir claims the abusive and defamatory posts started soon after the protest and only got worse in the days that followed. She alleged that certain social media creators began falsely branding her as an adult content creator, in violation of Instagram’s own community guidelines.
She went further, alleging that some accounts with sizeable followings circulated blurred bikini photos of her while falsely claiming to have accessed her “exclusive” adult content.
“These people are deliberately creating a false narrative. They are claiming that I sell this content to exclusive subscribers on Instagram and earn lakhs of rupees. But I have publicly clarified that my bank account is not even linked to exclusive subscriptions and I have not earned a single rupee from any such content,” Ahir said, as quoted in the report.
Worried that morphed images could surface next, Ahir said she’s pushing for legal action now rather than waiting for things to escalate.
“I want to nip this in the bud. The constant harassment, bullying and slut-shaming must be punished. I also want to encourage others who face such attacks to report them to the police,” she said.
Her father, Rajkumar Yadav, said the family had braced for some backlash after her intervention at the protest, but felt the online abuse had gone well beyond what was reasonable.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone X) Datta Nalawade confirmed the complaint is being examined. No FIR has been registered yet, he said, adding that police will decide their next step once the allegations have been reviewed.
