Child pornography content: Pimpri Chinchwad police file cases against 7 internet users

The two cases were registered following ‘Tipline reports’ generated from an arrangement between the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of India and the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), based in the US.

The NCMEC generates a ‘Tipline report’ after it gets a tip about content linked to child pornography or child sexual exploitation, verifies it and determines the possible location of the suspect. The report is made available to the concerned law enforcement agency of the country, which in India’s case, is the NCRB. The NCRB forwards this information to state police authorities.

It was based on seven such ‘Tipline reports’ that the Pimpri Chinchwad police registered two separate offences at Wakad and Chinchwad police stations on Wednesday. In the case registered at Wakad police station, two users who posted child pornography or child sexual exploitation content in May and June 2021 were booked. In the offence registered at Chinchwad police station, five users who posted such content between August 2020 and August 2021 were booked.

In both cases, the police invoked the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The police have also launched a probe into the cell phone numbers, email addresses and social media accounts used by the offenders to upload the content. In most of these cases, the content was uploaded on social media websites.

Since 2019, thousands of ‘Tipline reports’ have been generated about child pornography or child sexual exploitation content being posted online from India. Once individual police stations get the reports, they are registered as FIRs and are investigated. Maharashtra Cyber, the cyber crime and cyber security wing of the state police, is the nodal agency for such cases in the state.