Two held for sale of child sexual abuse material

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two Delhi-based persons for alleged sale and purchase of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) through social media platforms, officials said Sunday.

They said Neeraj Kumar Yadav, an engineer by education, and Kuljeet Singh Makan were taken into custody by a special unit of the agency that handles child abuse crimes.

The duo has been arrested in connection with an ongoing case against them, and the competent court has sent them to judicial custody till January 22, the officials said.

CBI spokesperson RC Joshi said the accused had allegedly advertised the sale of CSAM on Instagram with payments to be made through digital applications such as Paytm, Google

Pay and others.

“The CBI registered a case...on the allegations that the accused was advertising over Instagram Account for sale of objectionable material including CSAM,” he said.

“It was further alleged that the said accused had purchased large volume of data, from another accused person, which was stored over cloud-based websites containing objectionable material including the CSAM and made payment to him through PAY-TM for the same,” he added.

It was also alleged that Yadav was indulging in these activities since 2019 and gained monetary benefits out of it.

“On receipt of payments via Paytm/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,” he said.