The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday said it has arrested seven accused persons from various places including Delhi, Dhenkanal (Odisha), Noida and Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh and Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh) in an on-going investigation of a case related to alleged online child sexual abuse and exploitation.
“The arrested accused are being produced today before the Competent Courts,” the CBI said in a statement here. Those arrested are Raman Gautam, a resident of Delhi, Sathyender Mittal and Purushottam Jha, all residents of Delhi, Surendra Kumar Naik, a resident of Dhenkanal, Odisha, Nishant Jain, a resident of Noida, Uttar Pradesh, Jitendra Kumar, a resident of Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh and T Mohan Krishna, a resident of Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.
During investigation, it was revealed that the accused were allegedly sharing the links of Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) videos on certain websites like https://koflink.com and https://pdisklink.com among others. It was revealed that some individuals were involved in trading of CSEM material, the agency said.
The CBI had registered 23 separate cases on Sunday against 83 accused on the allegations related to online child sexual abuse and exploitation.
It was alleged that various syndicates of individuals based in different parts of India and foreign countries were indulging in circulating, storing and viewing CSEM through various social media platforms/groups, the said.
It was also alleged that persons were disseminating CSEM by way of sharing links, videos, pictures, texts, posts and hosting of such content on social media groups/platforms and third party storage/hosting platforms, it further said.
On Tuesday, searches were conducted at 77 locations including Tirupati, Kanekal (Andhra Pradesh); Delhi; KonchJalaun, Mau, Chandauli, Varanasi, Ghazipur, Siddharthanagar, Moradabad, Noida, Jhansi, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh);Junagarh, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar (Gujarat); Sangrur, Malerkotla, Hoshiarpur, Patiala (Punjab); Patna, Siwan (Bihar); Yamuna Nagar, Panipat, Sirsa, Hisar (Haryana); Bhadrak, Jajapur, Dhenkanal (Odisha); Tiruvalure, Coimbatore, Namkkal, Salem, Tiruvannamalai (Tamil Nadu); Ajmer, Jaipur, Jhunjhunu, Nagaur (Rajasthan); Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh); Jalgaon, Salwad, Dhule (Maharashtra); Korba (Chhattisgarh) and Solan (Himachal Pradesh) across 14 States in the country at the premises of accused which led to recovery of electronic gadgets/mobiles/laptops and the like.
As per preliminary information collected, there are more than 50 groups having more than 5,000 offenders sharing child sexual abuse material. Many of these groups also have involvement of foreign nationals. The probe so far has revealed that there may be involvement of nationals of around 100 countries spread across various continents.
The CBI is coordinating with sister agencies through formal and informal channels for further progress in the probe, it added.