1 held for uploading child porn clip in Mumbai; six more FIRs registered

A 38-year-old vegetable vendor was arrested from Sakinaka by the Mumbai cyber police on Friday for allegedly uploading a pornographic clip of a child on a social

A 38-year-old vegetable vendor was arrested from Sakinaka by the Mumbai cyber police on Friday for allegedly uploading a pornographic clip of a child on a social media platform in 2019.

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Six more FIRs have been registered against a few other accused for uploading pornographic videos of children. Deputy commissioner of police, Mumbai cyber police, Vishal Thakur, confirmed the arrest and said, “This year we have received information from the National Crime Records Bureau on 619 instances in Mumbai wherein content related to child pornography, rape, gang rape has been uploaded on social media. We have suo motu registered seven FIRs in this regard and nabbed one person.”

The arrested accused, Hridayprasad Goraknath Patel, a native of Uttar Pradesh, resided with his wife in Sakinaka. “Patel uploaded obscene content on Facebook two-three times after which his account was blocked. But with the help of an acquaintance, he made a new profile and uploaded child porn. The clip is not from India,” said a cyber police officer.

Patel was arrested under section 67 (B) of the Information Technology Act. The police are taking legal opinion to find out if sections of the IPC and POCSO Act can be applied to the cases. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the US tracks such obscene content. It informed NCRB about 25,000 tiplines regarding child porn and other obscene content. Of these, 1,680 tiplines are from Maharashtra, including a maximum of 619 from Mumbai.