Only threats of physical violence count as criminal intimidation.

Threats to someone's reputation or property, not just their body, can also amount to criminal intimidation under this section.

Indian Penal Code, 1860

Section 503

repealed

Criminal intimidation

Whoever threatens another with any injury to his person, reputation or property, or to the person or reputation of any one in whom that person is interested, with intent to cause alarm to that person, or to cause that person to do any act which he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which that person is legally entitled to do, as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat, commits criminal intimidation.§

Why this exists

This provision protects people's freedom to act according to their legal rights without being coerced through threats of harm. It recognises that threats, even without actual physical violence, can be a powerful tool of coercion, forcing victims to abandon their rights or perform unlawful acts out of fear, and it criminalises this coercive use of fear itself, separate from any offence that might follow if the threat were carried out.

Common misconceptions

Myth: Only threats of physical violence count as criminal intimidation.
Fact: Threats to someone's reputation or property, not just their body, can also amount to criminal intimidation under this section.