Bengaluru: In a major crackdown on a massive online pornography scandal, the Central Bureau of Investigation under directions from the Supreme Court on Thursday arrested porn kingpin Kaushik Kuonar from a posh locality in Bengaluru and seized 500 porn clippings from him, which he used to upload on You Tube. Kaushik is in his 30s and works as a freelancer allegedly using the porn clippings to earn his living. He is a 12th grader. He is likely to be taken on transit remand to Delhi.
The SC had directed the CBI to crack the online porn scandal following a letter by a Hyderabad-based voluntary organisation headed by Ms Sunitha Krishnan, who had uploaded an edited version of a gang-rape video on YouTube in the first week of February this year asking viewers to help identify the rapists in what she called #ShameTheRapistCampaign. The unedited video was one of nine such videos that were being circulated as MMS clips by an unknown gang.
The SC had taken a suo motu cognizance of the complaint and directed the CBI to crack the case. Ms Krishnan had moved the apex court after the police failed to make any arrests, despite the fact that the men in the videos were clearly visible. Among the nine videos, the CBI is probing eight under Regular Cases (RCs) and one under Preliminary Enquiry (PE).
Six FIRs relate to gang-rape, abduction or kidnapping, and dissemination of video or image of sexual violence against women, the seventh pertains to rape, abduction or kidnapping and dissemination of video or image of sexual violence against women, and the eighth FIR pertains to making sexual act, capturing images without consent and dissemination of video or image of sexual violence against women.
The CBI’s PE relates to beating of unidentified children by an unidentified man. The agency had announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh in each case for information on the accused and photos of the unidentified accused have also been sent to director generals of police of different states.
During investigation, CBI made concerted efforts by using sophisticated cyber forensics software and interface with various Internet Service Providers to ascertain the identity of the person/s who had uploaded such videos on the Net. Based on these inputs, they zeroed in on the uploader of three videos. “The IP address of the person, who had uploaded three such alleged rape clips, was traced to Bengaluru,” said an official source.
