Over 100 cases of child pornography registered, 50 held in Delhi in two days

The cases were registered at the cyber police station created in each of the 15 police districts of Delhi. More registration of cases and arrests of suspects are likely in the coming days, senior police officers privy to the operation said.

The Delhi Police said on Thursday that it has registered over a 100 cases of child pornography, in the past couple of days, and arrested nearly 50 persons in connection with these cases, as part of a newly launched drive to tackle the crime, which is rampant on social media and the internet. Most of these cases were registered and persons arrested based on inputs received from a US-based agency that works on identifying missing and exploited children, police said.

A contact offence is criminal offence such as rape, assault, or robbery in which there is a physical contact between the victim and perpetrater, police said. (Representational image)

The cases were registered at the cyber police station created in each of the 15 police districts of Delhi. More registration of cases and arrests of suspects are likely in the coming days, senior police officers privy to the operation said.

Deputy commissioner of police, intelligence fusion and strategic operations (IFSO) KPS Malhotra said the cases were registered and arrests made following preliminary investigations carried out by cyber experts posted with the IFSO. He said child pornographic contents on the internet were detected and the alleged offenders were identified with the help of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a USA-based private organisation, which is working on such cyber crimes in coordination with India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

Malhotra said NCMEC works on cases of missing and exploited children and it had coordination with all the major social media platforms to trace such children. “The NCMEC also scans the contents of the internet to identify child exploitation videos, child pornographic contents, online enticements and contact offences,” said Malhotra.

A contact offence is criminal offence such as rape, assault, or robbery in which there is a physical contact between the victim and perpetrater, police said.

“The NCMEC reviews these reports and shares them with the appropriate law enforcement agency or the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force in the US. In addition to the information provided by the reporting party, NCMEC typically adds geo-location information (if appropriate) and cross-references identifying information such as email addresses, user names, or IP addresses with the existing Cyber Tipline Reports (a centralised reporting system in the US to flag instances of online exploitation of children). The details are shared with nodal agencies of the country concerned and further distributed to the state concerned,” he said.

According to Malhotra, the Delhi Police also receives similar information from NCMEC. The inputs received in the recent past were developed by cyber experts posted in the IFSO stations. The IP addresses and other details of persons, who uploaded objectionable content related to child pornography, were collected and verified.

“Once the crimes and the location of the offenders were confirmed, cases were registered at the cyber police station concerned and the suspects arrested. So far, 50 such suspects have been arrested. The number will increase in the coming days. We (Delhi Police) have a zero-tolerance policy against child exploitation and child pornography,” Malhotra said.