What can I do about severe cyber-bullying and trolling?

Indian law does not use the term 'cyber-bullying' specifically, but a wide range of online conduct is criminal:

(1) Doxxing — publishing private personal information (address, phone, family details) to expose a person to harm;
(2) Trolling that crosses into defamation — false statements about a person made publicly;
(3) Hate speech targeting religion, caste, gender or sexual orientation;
(4) Online sexual harassment — unwelcome messages, lewd comments, deepfakes;
(5) Threats — of injury, defamation or violence;
(6) Sustained or repeated unwanted contact from a single user or coordinated group.

Where the conduct targets a woman or minor, additional protections kick in under the BNS and IT Act.

A combination of the BNS and IT Act usually applies:

(1) Section 356 BNS — defamation. Up to 2 years on conviction;
(2) Section 351 BNS — criminal intimidation. Up to 7 years where the threat is grave;
(3) Section 79 BNS — words, gestures or acts intended to insult a woman's modesty. Up to 3 years;
(4) Section 77 BNS — voyeurism, including circulating intimate images. 3 to 7 years;
(5) Section 196 BNS — promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race, caste or language;
(6) Sections 66E, 67 and 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 — privacy violation, obscene or sexually explicit material online.

For deepfakes or AI-generated abusive content, see our deepfake remedies guide.

The IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 impose strict timelines on social media intermediaries:

(1) Non-consensual intimate imagery — 24 hours from a user complaint to the designated Grievance Officer;
(2) Other unlawful content — 36 hours from a court order or government direction;
(3) Grievance acknowledgement — within 24 hours, and resolution within 15 days of a user complaint;
(4) Significant social media intermediaries (5 million+ users) must publish monthly compliance reports.

If the platform ignores your complaint, escalate to the Grievance Appellate Committee at gac.gov.in within 30 days, or to the Ministry of Electronics and IT.

Step 1 — Capture evidence first. Take full-page screenshots showing the troll's profile URL, the abusive content, and the timestamp. Save the page source if possible — content is often deleted quickly once reported.

Step 2 — Report on the platform. Use the in-app reporting tool to flag the content. Note the report reference number.

Step 3 — Email the Grievance Officer of the platform with the URL, screenshots and a description. Their contact must be published under Rule 3(2) of the IT Rules, 2021.

Step 4 — File a cybercrime complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal or call 1930. For sexual content targeting women or minors, use the dedicated 'Women/Child Related Crime' category.

Step 5 — Lodge an FIR. See our Zero FIR guide. The cyber cell handles the investigation.

Hire a reputable, specialised cyber-crime lawyer when:

(1) The harassment is sustained or coordinated — a group of accounts targeting you, repeated re-creation of accounts after being banned;
(2) Content has been re-uploaded after takedown — a lawyer can seek a John Doe or 'dynamic' injunction from the High Court, which binds all platforms to take down any copy of the same content;
(3) You want civil damages — Indian courts increasingly award compensation for reputational harm in cyber-defamation cases;
(4) The troll is anonymous — a lawyer can move the court for directions to platforms to disclose user data;
(5) The platform refuses to act after the 15-day grievance window — escalation to the Grievance Appellate Committee, the writ court, or the Consumer Forum may be needed.