Senior citizen among 6 held for sharing offensive content against children

Six persons, including a senior citizen, have been arrested for sharing online pictures and videos containing sexually offensive content against children, police said on Saturday.

The arrested persons were identified as Sanju Rathod (25), Amit Mandal (24), Narender Kumar (22), Revti Nandan Anand (34), Lok Raj Yajurvedi (61) and Sudama Ram (29), they said.

The accused were arrested under MASOOM (Mitigation of Adolescent Sexually Offensive Online Material), an initiative of the Delhi Police to fight online child pornography. They were sharing the offensive content on various social media platforms.

"Interrogation revealed that the accused received the content on social media and it was then uploaded or forwarded to other individuals," said Anyesh Roy, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crime).

Yajurvedi, who runs a grocery store here, has confessed to his involvement in the transmission of the content which depicts children engaged in sexually explicit acts or conduct, police said.

Preliminary checks of devices seized from him reveal that he had made a fake social media profile of a 19-year-old boy and used that to communicate in various forums, they said.

All the six accused persons have been arrested under appropriate sections of law and are being further interrogated. Investigation is in progress and efforts are being made to identify the source of the said offensive content as well as involvement of others, police added.