HYDERABAD: The
Cyberabad police on Wednesday registered an FIR and nabbed a
WhatsApp group admin for posting that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy, under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act.
The group admin, a 29-yearold private school teacher from Kukatpally had created the WhatsApp group —‘Bringing Together’, a couple of years ago.
The case follows a complaint dated April 19 from child rights activist
Achyuta Rao, to the Cyberabad police commissioner stating that a group of people from Miyapur, part of the WhatsApp group claimed to have sexually exploited children.
The complainant stated that the WhatsApp group admin was one Kushal and submitted screenshots of conversations and photograph to support his complaint.
In screenshots furnished to the police, Kushal was seen to have posted the offensive message saying, “relatives boy came from town as school children have summer holidays. He slept beside me and finish (sic).” Though a few members of the group responded positively to his message, others condemned the ‘act’ of Kushal.
The complaint was initially forwarded to the Cyber crime police. After initial probe, police found that the admin was from Kukatpally and his real name is S Pawar, a native of
Nizamabad.
50 members in Whatsapp group: Cops
His father is a scrap businessman. Pawar, a married man, has since been picked up by the Cyberabad police for questioning. Police found that there were about 50 members in the WhatsApp group Bringing Together, created in December 2015 by Kushal.
After establishing the real identity of Kushal, the case was then handed over to Kukatpally police. On Tuesday, a case (crime number: 357/ 2018) was registered under Section 12 (punishment for sexual harassment) of the POCSO Act, 2012. “Based on the complaint of Achyuta Rao, we have registered a case under POCSO Act and we are investigating to find out if the utterances in the WhatsApp group by the accused are true or not,” Kukatpally inspector
VPrasanna Kumar said.
Representative Image