E-Paper
Ludhiana photographer held for posting child porn on Instagram
The accused claimed that he had received the video as a forwarded post, which he shared on his handle
Police on Friday arrested a local photographer for sharing child sexual abuse imagery on his Instagram (photo and video sharing social networking site) account. The accused claimed that he had received the video as a forwarded post, which he shared on his handle.
The police have confiscated his mobile phone and initiated investigation to ascertain if he is connected with those operating online child exploitation and pornography network.
The accused has been identified as Ranjit Tiwari of Millar Ganj’s Gurpal Nagar. Division Number 6 SHO Amandeep Singh Brar said after investigation, the cyber cell had forwarded the case to them for further probe and make the arrest. The police have registered an FIR under Section 67-B (publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form) of the Information and Technology Act against the accused.
US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which keeps a check on such content on the internet, had found the video and contacted Punjab Police to investigate. AIG (cyber cell) had further marked a probe to the Ludhiana cyber cell.
The police traced the accused through the IP address of his phone and summoned him to join the investigation. Tiwari stated that he had received the video as a forwarded post, which he had shared on his Instagram account. He claimed of having no other information about the video.
NCMEC uses information from people, internet service providing companies and software to track child porn content online.
The ministry of home affair (MHA) had signed an agreement with NCMEC in 2019 following which, the latter had started sending their tipline reports on child porn videos being posted on social networking sites.
NCMEC had logged 25,000 such reports in five months and submitted them to MHA in January 2020.
