Delhi's "Bois Locker Room" Chat on Gangrape Leaked

All you need to know about the "bois locker room" group chat

Leaked photos of an Instagram group chat called “Bois Locker Room” involving about 100 Delhi teens slut-shaming schoolgirls has stirred up a storm on social media.

The group allegedly involves young boys from Delhi’s top schools casually talking about gangrape while sharing pictures of minor girls and objectifying them. 

Delhi Police has filed cases linked to the now deactivated Instagram group. The cyber-crime division has also been involved to investigate the matter.

Chief of Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal has issued notices to both Instagram and Delhi Police, demanding details of the group and its members as well as a thorough report on actions taken on the matter.

In the early hours of 4th May, girls who got their hands on screenshots of chats from the online group took to various social media platforms to share what can only be described as a nightmare for schoolgirls and parents.

Supposedly, a boy who was added in the group shared screenshots of it with his female friends who then posted them on various social media platforms. With hundreds of tweets on #boyslockerroom and a social media outrage on the issue, the matter was soon covered by the mainstream media.

Instagram influencer Ashnaa Sharma, who was one of the first ones to highlight the group, posted on Twitter and Instagram. 

Later she also posted about receiving threats and abuse following her post exposing boys in the locker room group.  Ms Sharma's bio now mentions she is "going off" Instagram as her security is being threatened.

Another separate Snapchat conversation shows a member of the chat casually remarking about raping a woman.

Several screenshots from the Bois Locker Room and such chats showed members talking about sexual assault against girls - mostly underage who are their classmates. The language in these conversations is too crude to be reproduced.

But, in all likelihood, this is not the only such group out there. In 2019, eight students, aged 13 and 14, were suspended from a top Mumbai school for making violent and sexually explicit remarks about their female classmates in a WhatsApp conversation. 

Hours after the Delhi controversy gained momentum on social platforms, the original group was deactivated and in its stead, a new group named “Bois Locker Room 2.0” was started. The second group is now inactive as well. 

The questions that are now being raised about normalising rape, objectification of girls, and misogyny are not so different from those before. Delhi has previously made world headlines for a shocking gangrape case in 2012 - the Nirbhaya case.

Every time something horrific like this happens, we are shaken up. We are enraged. We post about it. Maybe protest about it. For days, we can’t help but think about the victims. But, eventually, people forget about it. Forget about their rage, about the injustice of it all. We need to keep talking, keep raising our voice. 

Such blatant attitude and these “locker room chats” have the potential to escalate from a casual conversation to an actual statistic. It is happening now - with teenage boys in a virtual world.

Often the distinction between those who make such comments, participate in such acts is assumed to be of educated vs illiterate, rich vs poor. These plethora of screengrabs say otherwise.

The boys in these chats are seemingly from the ‘best schools’ and ‘good backgrounds’ from the rich, posh areas of South Delhi. 

We wonder how it all starts. Maybe because...

"Boys will be boys"

"It's okay, ignore it"

"It was your fault"

"Don’t you see the time?"

"I can see your bra strap"

"Is this how you are going out?"

"Boys don’t cry"

"Boys will be boys"

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