BANDA: A court here on Wednesday granted the CBI seven days' remand of a UP irrigation department junior engineer who was arrested for allegedly sexually exploiting children for the last 10 years and selling videos and photographs on the darknet to paedophiles across the globe.
Additional District and Sessions Judge (POCSO Act) Mohd Rizwan Ahmed sent the accused Ram Bhawan to CBI custody for a week from Thursday.
The court accepted a plea for Bhawan's physical, blood and voice tests, Additional District Government counsel (ADGC) Manoj Dixit said, adding these will be conducted at AIIMS, New Delhi.
Earlier the court had given five days' custody to the CBI for collecting evidence in November, he said.
The arrested junior engineer, a resident of Chitrakoot district, is alleged to have victimised about 50 children in the age group of 5-16 years in the districts of Chitrakoot, Banda and Hamirpur.
The CBI had lodged a case against him on October 31 and arrested him on November 16.
He is presently lodged in Banda jail.
During searches, the CBI had recovered eight mobile phones, around Rs eight lakh in cash, sex toys, laptop and other digital evidence carrying a large amount of child sexual abuse material.
It is alleged that the junior engineer was indulging in such activities for the last 10 years, mainly contacting and sharing child sexual abuse material with other paedophiles globally using the darknet and cloud services abroad.
He is understood to have told the investigators that he used to lure the children with mobile phones and other electronic gadgets.