Two held for sale of child sexual abuse material

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two men for the alleged sale and purchase of child sexual abuse material over social media platforms, officials said on Sunday.

A case under the Pocso (prevention of children from sexual offences) Act and relevant sections of the Information Technology

Act has been registered against the accused — Neeraj Kumar Yadav and Kuljeet Singh Makan.

The two have been accused of advertising on social media platform, Instagram, for sale of objectionable material including child pornographic material, the officials said.

“It was further alleged that the said accused (Neeraj Yadav) had purchased large volume of data, from another accused person which was stored over cloud based websites containing objectionable material including the child pornography material and made payment to him through PAYTM for the same. Thereafter, the accused allegedly published an advertisement for sale of said material over Instagram,” said CBI spokesperson RC Joshi.

“On receipt of payments via Paytm or Google Pay etc from the customer(s)/seekers, the accused was allegedly sharing the said objectionable material with them through Whatsapp, Telegram, Instagram and other social media platforms.

“It was also alleged that he has gained monetary benefits and was indulging in these activities since 2019,” Joshi added.

The two accused were produced in a Delhi court on Saturday and have been remanded to judicial custody till January 22.