Why CBI is worried about Indian men’s lust for violent porn

The Central Bureau of Investigation made a shocking disclosure: Indian men are fuelling violent porn in cyber space.

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New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has made a shocking disclosure: Indian men are fuelling violent porn in cyber space.

Filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court on Thursday, the CBI said that men were behind the surge in pornography on the web.

According to reports in newspapers, the CBI said that violent porn was witnessing a rise in cyberspace due to the domineering male population’s “insatiable lust” and “penchant for salacious material, including violence against women”.

"Rape and gang-rape represent the oldest and longest continuing instances of a criminal man's inhumanity on woman. Committing such abhorrent crimes, recording them and disseminating them across the world through Internet-enabled media serve to titillate and indirectly embolden other males to commit such heinous crimes. These not only add to the misery of existing victims but also endanger and threaten the safety of other innocent women and children," the CBI's affidavit said.

The CBI filed the affidavit in response to a PIL by NGO Prajwala on violent porn in Indian cyberspace.

The CBI said the Indian male population is a potential market and added: “The cyber-porn invasion of Indian cyber ecosystem is also on account of the huge market potential carried by a large population like India, particularly the domineering male population that has time and again shown an insatiable lust and penchant for salacious material, including violence against women.”

The CBI contended that a central law enforcement authority needs to be given powers to investigate and prosecute all cyber crimes in order to safeguard young women and children.

Further, the agency called on the apex court to designate the CBI as the national agency to probe cybersex offences and prosecute offenders. The CBI said it has the "highest experience and expertise in pursuing trans-jurisdictional investigations" which will help in tracking and prosecuting sex offenders who operate in foreign locations.

The CBI affidavit further blamed rapid urbanization and its effect on the youth for surge in cyber crimes.

“The sharp rise in rapes with the ubiquity of Internet-enabled pornography, coupled with the forces of rapid urbanization that lead to disconnected lives of youth have produced a complex social crisis in this country, which can be correlated to the rampant proliferation of such (cyber) crimes.”