Two years after the controversial Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act was struck down by the Supreme Court, new research points at how another section of the Act is being similarly misused with grave consequences for freedom of expression, sexuality and digital rights.

A study by Point of View, a non-profit organisation that works on gender rights, sexual violence and the digital rights of women, has drawn attention to the indiscriminate and increasing use of Section 67 of the IT Act by the police across India. The first ever in-depth study of Section 67 finds that it is leaning suspiciously towards the draconian Section 66A.

The report, Guavas and Genitals, that draws its title from an incident involving four Pune boys, analyses National Crime Records Bureau data as well as media reports on cases of obscenity. “Three of us had gone there [a garden in Pune] to eat guavas, but when we reached there, we started playing with each others genitals. We then stopped under a tamarind tree, where two of us had oral and anal sex while the third shot it on his phone. This was repeated on all three. After two hours, we returned home,” a 17-year-old boy told the police after a video displaying him and three other boys engaging in sexual acts was reported in November 2014. One of the boys had reportedly uploaded the video on a WhatsApp group and it spread like wildfire. An acquaintance who saw the video informed the police. The boys were booked for obscenity under Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).