Mumbai police book 3 for morphing pictures of women to make videos

The Tardeo police booked the owners of three video channels for allegedly uploading obscene videos using morphed pictures of women on a leading video streaming website.

The Tardeo police booked the owners of three video channels for allegedly uploading obscene videos using morphed pictures of women on a leading video streaming website. The three accused had extracted the pictures of the women from a popular matrimonial site, Shaadi.com, the police said.

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According to the police, some days ago, the matrimonial site discovered that the photos of their members were being misused by the channels. The owner of the site, People Interactive India Private Limited, then approached the Tardeo police on Wednesday, through its associate director (legal and secretarial), Usha Vinod Kumar, 40.

Kumar filed complaints against the channels, Shadi KJ, DILL UR and Online Shadi, and submitted the URL links of the obscene videos. These channels have subscribers ranging from 12,000 to 83,000 viewers.

“The accused have defamed our company’s name as well as our members by uploading their vulgar videos on the streaming site,” Kumar stated in the complaint.

When HT tried to contact her on the issue, she said she is not authorised to speak to the press.

However, a Shaadi.com spokesperson said, “[After getting complaints] we immediately identified and reported the channels to the police as well as to the video streaming site, and they are working to ensure such miscreants are penalised as per law. We are sure that video platforms take quick measures to keep their video content safe.”

The police has blocked the obscene videos now, an officer from the Tardeo police station said.

“We have booked the owners of the three channels under sections 500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code, 43B (extracting data without owner’s permission) and 67A (publishing sexually explicit material) of the Information Technology Act,” said Sanjay Surve, senior inspector, Tardeo police station.

The police has also written to the video streaming site asking them for the details of the channel owners. “We have sought the details of the channel operators. Once we get the details, we will nab them,” Surve said.

A preliminary inquiry into the case revealed that the channels have also allegedly extracted pictures of several women and girls from various social media sites to make vulgar videos and attract more subscribers for their channels, the police said.

HT tried to contact the channel operators on the numbers displayed on their video pages. However, they were unreachable.