Woman Who Tweeted About Dipa Karmakar's Vault Got Sexual Threats

Jaipur: A young woman in Jaipur, trolled and threatened with rape for her tweets on Dipa Karmakar's medal miss at the Rio Olympics, received help after she tweeted an SOS to Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Ms Swaraj, who is popular on social media for her quick response to posts asking for her attention, referred the woman's appeal to Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, whose office immediately called Jaipur police commissioner Sanjay Agarwal.

In her complaint to the police, the woman has listed twitter handles she said were used to attack her over her tweets on gymnast Dipa Karmakar, who took fourth position at the vault final.

"...I have faced life and rape threats generally and particularly from the handles @thedrunkrider, @rajeshraj927 and @vivekMmishra and attacks on my modesty as a woman," she alleges.

In a series of tweets, the woman had critiqued the state of Indian sports and poor infrastructure.

"Gymnasts from other countries don't have to perform the produnova, called the death vault to gain points ...tonight she is going to risk her life to win an Olympic medal , life is not worth any medal for any damned country," she tweeted.  

The woman, who also tagged Home Minister Rajnath Singh in her tweets, says she faced extreme harassment for the words "damned country" and was threatened with sexual violence.

After Ms Raje stepped in, a senior police officer arrived at the woman's doorstep.

"One lady was getting a lot of hate mail because of what she had tweeted so we got in touch with her last night. A case was registered under the IT act. We are talking to service providers and we are trying to ascertain the identity of those who sent the hate mail," said the police chief.

The woman spoke to NDTV over the phone but did not agree to an interview as she does not want her identity revealed. "The entire thing has been blown a little out of proportion. I now want to put it behind me and move on," she said on Wednesday.