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In a first, TN arrests man for circulating child porn

Last Updated 12 December 2019, 15:40 IST

In a first, Tamil Nadu police on Thursday arrested a 42-year-old man for allegedly storing and circulating child pornographic content on social media and personal messaging apps from Tiruchirapalli.

Christopher Alphonse was arrested and sent to 14-day judicial custody by a court here. Police sources said the alleged accused was being monitored by Crime against Women and Children (CWC) wing of the Tamil Nadu police for some time.

“He was found to be storing child pornographic content digitally and circulating them on personal messaging apps. Circulating such content is in violation of the law and we have arrested him,” a senior police officer said.

He said the action was taken against a complaint filed by an individual who alleged that child pornographic content was being posted on a Facebook page. “The Facebook page was then tracked using technology and police found more than 10,000 videos in the page,” he said.

Alphonse has been booked under the stringent POCSO Act, 2012 and relevant sections of the IT Act, the officer said, adding that the alleged accused was found to have been circulating the content on social media sites too by using different names like Aadhavan and Nilavan.

“He had even formed a group on Messenger to share such offensive content. But he deleted them from his phone thinking that he would not get caught. However, we were able to prove that he had shared the content and had even deleted them,” he said.

M. Ravi, ADGP, CWC wing said the police would continue to carry out arrests if anyone is found to be storing or circulating child pornographic content.

“Christopher is the first to be arrested for such offence in Tamil Nadu. We monitor such illegal activities of people and we have prepared a list of such offenders. Law will catch up with them soon. All those circulating child pornographic content will be arrested,” he said, adding that the alleged accused has been circulating such content for the past two years.

The CWC wing has been tracking websites and people sharing such offensive contents ever since it was established early this year. It investigates cases like acid attacks, molestation and rapes, child sexual abuse and pornography.

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(Published 12 December 2019, 15:40 IST)

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