Delhi: Over 100 FIRs lodged, 36 held during operation against child pornography

Whenever it comes across any content violating privacy or projecting obscene material regarding children, it is red-flagged, details below.

New Delhi: Delhi Police's Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit has registered more than 100 FIRs and nabbed 36 people under a major operation against child pornography, officials said on Thursday. The operation, "MASOOM" (mitigation of adolescent sexually offensive online material), was coordinated by the IFSO and all the districts were instrumental in making it successful, they added. Details of violations pertaining to child pornographic material (CTRs or cyber tipline reports) were received by the IFSO through the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), police said.

On the basis of these CTRs, 105 cases were registered at various police stations across Delhi and legal action was taken against the offenders. So far, 36 people have been arrested or apprehended during the operation, Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO) Prashant Gautam said. An MoU was signed between the NCRB and the NCMEC, a US-based private, non-profit organisation that was established in 1984 by the United Nations Congress.

It has a tie-up with social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Whenever it comes across any content violating privacy or projecting obscene material regarding children, it is red-flagged. The IP address details of the user who had uploaded the content are then procured, police said. Under the MoU, the NCMEC provides CTRs or information about sexually offensive content involving children that has been shared or uploaded on social media platforms to the NCRB. These complaints, along with the details of the person sharing or uploading such sexually offensive contents, are forwarded by the NCMEC to the NCRB, which shares those with the state nodal agencies, police said, adding that the IFSO is the nodal agency in Delhi for the same.

The IFSO has analysed the details received from the NCRB to identify any organised nexus in child pornography. After a technical analysis of more than 10,000 CTRs, the actionable reports were identified, the officials said. The CTRs were segregated on the basis of the jurisdiction of the districts. The IFSO also identified the suspects in these CTRs.Thereafter, the information about the CTRs and the suspects was disseminated with the districts concerned for further legal action, police said.