Pornography raises its ugly head in Delhi

Prashant Dev

Pornography, a crime, has crooked into a well-organised ‘business’ these days. Easy and convenient accessibility of obscene MMSs and porn videos is now rather a business that is running in crores in the national capital. It involves, as key players, the whole gang of distributors and consumers working as a syndicate in connivance with the police. Irrespective of the provisions under Sections 292, 293 and 294 of the IPC, and Section 97 of IT Act, 2000 that can fairly examine the problem, the police stands as a mute witness to the sex business. “As per the law, a person held in this crime once can be imprisoned for five years, and can be penalized with Rs 1 lakh. On being held twice, one can be imprisoned for 10 years and penalized with Rs 2 lakh,” said Shekhar Kumar, an advocate at the Supreme Court.

The distributors of such content are increasingly coming up for earning thousands a day, by catering to the target audience of these MMSs, especially the youth. Every week there is a new video released in the market, which, indisputably, is a disgrace for the populace of the country.

Such videos attract more consumers because they are named strikingly, somewhat like films. A few of the recent popular MMSs have been named Miranda House, Bengali Girl, Kaushal and Khanna. These are the ones that are currently the main products on sale and purchase in the sex business of Delhi. ‘Miranda House’, which features girls of the same college, is on for sale at an awfully high price.

At a cost of just Rs 50, one can easily get his/her mobile phone loaded with the readily available obscene recordings. The sellers have the recordings stored in their computers or laptops and as and when a consumer comes up, they transfer it to his mobile phone through data cable.

A reason for the growth of the ‘mobile sex’ market, apart from the crave for money and pleasure, is the myth that common people believe in, which says that an MMS or video if recorded can be deleted as and when required. But unfortunately, as said, it is a myth. A video once recorded in a mobile phone can be easily retrieved back after it is deleted, with the help of a software, which is on hand with the distributors of the MMS business. “Yes, it can easily be done with a software. The deleted videos can simply be retrieved back,” said Manoj Kumar, a mobile software expert.

A number of hotels, resorts and other public places in the country act host to this crime. Most are the ones where couples choose to go for their personal gratification, and unknowingly get victimised, generally under the eye of hidden cameras. Some sex rackets have previously been busted in Jodhpur and Rudrapur.

And in Delhi, Karol Bagh’s Laapat Rai market, known for the availability of electronic items, is one of areas from where the MMS business operates. Women are scared to enter this place. The list includes the famous underground Palika Bazaar in Connaught Place and many other small shops in other parts of the city which carry out the process fearlessly.

The issue is bound to gain serious concern as the youth of the country is, inevitably, getting addicted to pornography. Psychologists say that it is not easy to pull back the section of the youth captivated to pornographic videos, which is nothing bizzare about the human character.

(Inputs from Parivesh Vatsyayan and Manmohan Bhatt) (Adapted by Bhavna Khullar)