One more arrested by Gujarat Police for selling women patient's CCTV videos; seven held so far

Ahmedabad: Gujarat Police has arrested one more person in connection with alleged hacking of a hospital's CCTV network to obtain videos of women patients for online sale, officials said on Wednesday.

The arrest of Rohit Sisodia, a Delhi resident, took the tally of those held so far to seven.

Sisodia allegedly converted hacked CCTV footage into QR codes and sold them to the co-accused who then shared the videos through YouTube and Telegram channels, Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Branch said in a release.

The Cyber Crime Branch on February 17 registered a case after videos of women patients being examined by doctors inside the labour room of a hospital were found to have been circulated on some subscription-only YouTube and Telegram channels.

The police arrested six people including a hacker named Parit Dhamelia from Surat and owner of a YouTube channel Prajwal Taily, a resident of Latur, Maharashtra.

Dhamelia, a commerce graduate, had allegedly hacked into the CCTV system of a maternity home in Rajkot and shared videos with Sisodia, as per the police.

After converting the clips into QR codes, Sisodia allegedly sold them to Taily and some others.

A few clips were subsequently shared by three YouTube channels, including one owned by Taily, with the description carrying a link to a Telegram group. Members of the Telegram group were charged Rs 2,000 per video, said the release.

Besides the maternity home in Rajkot, Dhamelia and his accomplice Rayan Perera allegedly hacked into nearly 50,000 CCTVs of hospitals, offices, schools, colleges and even CCTVs installed in people's bedrooms, said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crime, Lavina Sinha.

All seven accused people have been booked for criminal conspiracy and voyeurism under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and for cyber terrorism under Section 66(f)(2) of the Information Technology Act, said the release.