CHENNAI: Three years after allegedly sharing child sexual abuse materials with a friend on Instagram, an 18-year-old college student was detained by Chennai police. The information was passed from a US-based NGO to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and subsequently to the police.
The NGO, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children monitors the circulation of explicit exploitation material on social media and shares the details with respective governments. “In 2019, the NGO sent a list of social media profiles involved in sharing explicit content, to the MHA. The information was passed on to the respective states,” a senior police officer said.
The wing for crimes against women and children received the particulars of one of the cases and forwarded them to the Vepery Assistant Commissioner in April. Upon getting the details of the student from Instagram, police secured him from his house in Choolai on Wednesday. Inquiries revealed that he downloaded the content from pornographic websites when he was in Class 11. He was booked under Sections of the POCSO and IT Acts, and the Vepery all-women police are interrogating him. Police officers said he has not yet been formally arrested.