JOIN USCBI files 23 FIRs, raids 76 places in online child abuse cases
The CBI on Tuesday conducted searches at 76 locations in 14 states, including in Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, against 83 people who are part of an international racket allegedly involved in sexual abuse of children and posting and circulating abuse material on the internet.
The action came after the CBI registered 23 separate cases against 83 people on charges of online child sexual abuse and exploitation, officials said that adding relevant sections of the Information Technology Act and Indian Penal Code.
Besides Delhi, Andhra and Tamil Nadu, the other states where searches were conducted included Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
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According to multiple FIRs, the agency has received information about a "syndicate of individuals based in different parts of India and foreign countries" who were "circulating, storing and viewing" Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) through various social media platforms and groups.
"Such persons are 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," the FIRs said.
The accused in "connivance with each other" were involved in "publishing/transmitting CSEM in the electronic form depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct and are collecting/seeking/ browsing/downloading/
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The CBI is also regularly coordinating with international law enforcement agencies to detect and investigate sexual abuse of minors, especially over cyberspace and also reaffirms its commitment towards promoting cooperation with US Law Enforcement Agencies in combating child sexual abuse in cyberspace.
In one of the FIRs, 31 people have been named, which included those from 12 states -- Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
According to figures provided by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in Rajya Sabha in March this year, the number of cases of child abuse on the internet also rose by three times between 2017 and 2019 with Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and West Bengal topping the list of ignominy.
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There were a total of 88 cases in 2017, which rose to 232 in 2018 and 305 in 2019. Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of 128 cases in three years followed by Kerala 55, Madhya Pradesh 40, Karnataka 35 and West Bengal 29.
Earlier this January, two-Delhi based men, including an engineering graduate, were arrested by the CBI on charges of selling and purchasing CSEM through social media platforms. This came on a case registered on claims that advertisements of objectionable material, including child pornographic material, were posted on Instagram for sale.
They had allegedly purchased a large volume of data, from another accused person, which was stored over cloud-based websites containing objectionable material including the CSEM and made payment to him through Pay-TM for the same.
In November 2019, the CBI had recently arrested a resident of Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh on the allegations of sexually abusing over 50 children. During searches, huge materials including mobile phones, laptops, web-camera, electronic storage devices, pen drives/ memory cards, several sex toys, emails etc. were recovered.
Last December, the CBI had also arrested a Kashmiri resident for allegedly circulating child abuse material on the internet and targeting minors in the United States through his wife staying in Washington.
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