KATHMANDU: Unnecessary phone calls even at wee hours have troubled young girls in the Valley. With the advance of information technology, everyone wishes to carry cell phones, and youths consider it their top priority. But these days, the device is being used in some kind of stalking activity.

This week, alone, more than 150 persons have lodged complaint with the police saying that continuous phone calls have been troubling them, said Metropolitan Police Crime Division Women Cell in-charge Deputy Superintendent of Police Gita Uprety.

Meghna Ghimire (Name changed) lodged a complaint on March 20, 2010. Ghimire complained that she got many calls almost for a month from different numbers. “Once I say hello, the caller asks my name, details about me and other stuffs. I tried to avoid as much as I could but those calls did not stop,” said Ghimire.

She even warned them but they would not stop calling. But then she started getting calls at midnight and also while attending lectures. She finally decided to consult her mother and they finally sought help from the police.

Ghimire said, “We found that the callers are my college boys. They shared my number among friends and were irritating me. Three of them are from the same college and the fourth one is their friend from a different college. Now the unnecessary calls have stopped. But still I get haunted every time my phone rings.”

MPCD Women’s Cell deals with cases related to women/ girls. Not only Meghna but there are such 73 such cases solved already and 77 cases are being investigate, said Uprety.

The police said that many times they call both the parties make them communicate with each other. Sometimes because the police doesn’t get call details and investigation takes much time. The police added that most of the callers are young boys aged 16-22. Some of the boys have cell phones just to irritate girls, added Uprety.

DSP Uprety said, “Some boys use a SIM to make such calls and another SIM for his daily use. Some call numbers blindly and later if they find a recipient to be a girl they keep on calling regularly. While some keep on calling if the receiver does not respond and ignore their calls.