NEW DELHI: Delhi Police has arrested 36 people and filed 105 FIRs across police stations in connection with a child pornography and paedophilia network investigation.The accused were found sharing CSAM (child sexual abuse material) through WhatsApp and other platforms. TOI had reported about the brewing investigation on December 11 and how 12 FIRs had been registered in south Delhi alone. The police action comes on the basis of information received from US-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC has signed an MoU with National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which coordinates with Delhi Police’s cyber cell and helps in information sharing.NCEMC — which has a tieup with social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram — painstakingly goes through the content on these platforms using different tools and flags any obscene material regarding children. It also grabs the IP address details of the user who has uploaded the obscene content. These details are then forwarded to police in different states through NCRB. This is the second such operation by Delhi Police since 2021. The coordinated action against child pornography was initiated last year in December by DCP KPS Malhotra. The Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Ops (IFSO) unit of Delhi Police had then registered 172 FIRs and arrested 102 people across the city. DCP Malhotra and his team had geo-tagged the identified internet protocol addresses and related mobile numbers to the newly formed cyber police stations in every district. The local cyber police stations had used the information to arrest the suspects from respective areas.The second operation was planned about a month ago after fresh cyber tip-line reports (CTR) pertaining to child pornography were received at IFSO with details of violations. “On the basis of these CTRs, 105 cases were registered in different police stations and necessary legal action was taken against the offenders,” said DCP Prashant Gautam.“In this operation, titled MASOOM (Mitigation of Adolescent Sexually Offensive Online Material), all districts played an instrumental role in making the operation successful. This exercise is a classic example of intra departmental and inter agency coordination,” a senior officer said.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/36-arrested-105-firs-filed-in-child-porn-paedophilia-cases/articleshow/96434875.cms
