Kashmiri resident arrested for targeting minors in US

The CBI said that the accused ran the child abuse racket through his wife living in Washington in the US

A Kashmiri resident has been arrested by the CBI for allegedly circulating child abuse material on the internet and targeting minors in the United States through his wife staying in Washington.

The accused allegedly uploaded pornographic videos and images over the dark web for financial gains and also involved in direct communication with many minors in the US, the CBI said on Tuesday.

The arrest came following an investigation into allegations of running online child sexual abuse racket from India, targeting minors living in the US.

The accused's wife is living in Washington and he was operating the racket through her. The woman had "agreed to be involved in the master-slave relationship with the accused and on his direction, allegedly exploited multiple minors, recorded abuses and electronically sent the same to him," the CBI claimed.

When the victims refused to follow his dictate, the CBI claimed, he shared these videos and images with their family members.

Searches were conducted at the premises of the accused in Srinagar from where digital evidence including three laptops, five mobiles, pen drives and handwritten notes among others were recovered.

The CBI is regularly coordinating with international law enforcement agencies to detect and investigate sexual abuse of minors, especially over the cyberspace and also reaffirms its commitment towards promoting cooperation with US Law Enforcement Agencies in combating child sexual abuse in cyberspace, the CBI said.

CBI had recently traced and arrested an accused, a resident of Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh on November 16 on the allegations of sexually abusing over 50 children. During searches, huge material including mobile phones, laptops, web-camera, electronic storage devices, pendrives/memory cards, several sex toys, emails etc. were recovered.