Police, on Friday, nabbed five men on charges of circulating pornographic content involving a 17-year-old girl on whatsapp.
According to police, Santosh, Sunil, Subramanya, Sachin and Raghavendra, aged between 24 and 35 years and daily wage workers, are the accused. Santosh, Sunil, whom the girl knew already, had lured her on January 15 promising that she would be dropped at her home in the village when she was waiting for the bus in the town.
Instead, they took her to a room at Jayanagar, one km from Hosanagar town. Both of them had sexual intercourse with her and they had recorded it on their mobile phones. Later, they threatened that the video would be shared on social media networking sites if she revealed it with others. The duo asked her to come to their room on January 21. But she denied. Enraged by this, the duo shared it with others.
Learning about the video, police registered a suo-motu case and stopped circulation of the video on social media networking sites.
Speaking to DH, Superintendent of Police B M Laxmi Prasad said police acted immediately after they came to know about the video being circulated on whataspp. They took all steps to halt circulation of the video and took persons to their custody for circulating the video on social media networking sites.
"We were not aware of the victim and the accused. After seeing the video, they were brought to the station and took their statements in the presence of the Child Welfare Committee," he said. Police registered a case against Santosh and Sunil under The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and three others under 67 B of Information Technology Act for publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act or conduct.