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10 held as CBI raids 77 places in crackdown on child porn
As many as 23 first information reports (FIRs) were registered against 83 accused persons, in the last two days, for allegedly posting and circulating child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) through various social media platforms.
At least 10 people were detained by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday during raids at 77 locations across 14 states and Union territories, to crackdown on sexual abuse and circulation of child pornography material, officials familiar with the matter said.
As many as 23 first information reports (FIRs) were registered against 83 accused persons, in the last two days, for allegedly posting and circulating child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) through various social media platforms. Police are also probing the role of several nationals across 100 countries in the case, the officials cited above said.
According to one of the FIRs, the accused people, based in different Indian cities and various foreign countries, are part of multiple syndicates “indulging in storing, circulating and viewing CSEM”.
The FIR, a copy of which HT has seen, also said that the accused were disseminating CSEM by way of sharing links, videos, pictures, texts, posts and hosting of such content on social media groups/platforms and third-party storage/hosting platforms.
CBI spokesperson R C Joshi said there are more than 50 groups having more than 5,000 offenders. “Many of these groups also have the involvement of foreign nationals. It has been initially learnt that nationals from around 100 countries spread across various continents may be involved in the matter. The CBI is coordinating with sister agencies through formal and informal channels,” he said.
An official, on condition of anonymity, said that some of the countries where these individuals are based include Pakistan, Bangladesh, the US, the UK, Canada, France and Saudi Arabia.
Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh were among states where searches were held, Joshi said.
In Odisha’s Dhenkanal, CBI sleuths faced resistance after a group of people attacked the team for raiding the house of one Mithun Nayak, a security guard in a hospital, one of the officials cited above said on condition of anonymity.
“As we took his mobile phone, we suddenly came under attack from women. We were first locked in a room and then dragged outside. The women began beating us with wooden planks,” the official said.
The CBI team was finally rescued by a team of policemen from Dhenkanal Town police station. “The CBI team had not informed us about the raid. We managed to get them out of the place,” Dhenkanal SP K Siva Subramani said.
Officials claimed Nayak was a part of WhatsApp group which dealt with child sexual abuse videos.
The house of an autodriver, Manoj Das, in Binayakpur village under Agarpada police station of Bhadrak district was also raided by another team. Das, officials said, has been accused of sharing explicit videos of minors.
Similarly,Anil Majhi of Keutanguan village under Goleipur panchayat of Jajpur district was also interrogated on charges of circulating such videos.
In Andhra Pradesh, one person named T Krishna Mohanwas arrested from Tirupati in Chittoor district for uploading child porn-related videos on social media and selling the same to a third party, an official said on condition of anonymity.
Mohan was allegedly involved in luring children into the flesh trade and videographing the same, the official added.
In Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri, the CBI raided the home of one Rahul Rana, a resident of Pichhore, accusing him of running a child pornography site.
The raids were conducted by the agency and its special unit, Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Prevention/ Investigation (OCSAE), which deals with matters pertaining to the online child sexual abuse and exploitation. The unit often gets information from embassies and overseas federal probe agencies, about organised rackets related to online child sexual abuse and exploitation.
The CBI is also the nodal agency for the Interpol, which has an International Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE) image and video database, to allow investigators from member countries to share data on cases of child sexual abuse.
Used by 64 countries, including India, the ICSE has helped identify 23,500 victims and 10,752 offenders worldwide from 2.3 million images and videos in the database. ICSE also has a provision to share data, both in an open network that can be accessed by all countries as well as with specific countries.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 2020 witnessed a 400 percent rise in cyber crimes committed against children when compared to the previous year, with most cases pertaining to publishing or transmitting of materials depicting children in sexually explicit acts.
“While the problem is huge, what needs to be done is to sensitise the police about the issue. If a person files a complaint, he/she is haunted with questions like where did you get this? How did you get this? Also, there is an urgent need to come down on some apps, where one gets these horrible ads which instigate children to join another site where they become prey to online abuse,” Bharti Ali, co-founder, HAQ Centre for Child Rights, said.
Child sexual abuse is punishable in India under the 2012 Prevention of Children from Sexual Exploitation (POCSO) Actand sections of the Indian Penal Code.
As first reported by HT on February 25, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 have been notified which say that intermediaries shall remove or disable access to content that exposes the private areas of individuals, show such individuals in full or partial nudity or in sexual act or is in the nature of impersonation, including morphed images, etc, within 24 hours of receipt of complaints.
In November last year, a junior engineer in Uttar Pradesh was arrested by the CBI for allegedly sexually exploiting around 50 children and selling their videos and photos on the dark web. The agency has included his name in the ICSE database of sexual predators as well.
