kochi: Criticising the police for the delay in filing final report in the online sex racket case, the Kerala High Court on Wednesday granted bail to Rahul Pashupalan and Reshmi R Nair who are the third and fourth accused in the case respectively.
Justice Sunil Thomas observed that though the allegation against the accused are very serious, the investigation has not been completed and a final report was not filed in spite of expiry of the statutory period. Hence the duo is entitled to default bail.
The prosecution case against the couple is that they had created a website depicting pornographic pictures of minor children with obscene and sexual comments and made the content wide circulation on the social networking sites. Their activities were spread across the State and outside Kerala.
They were also a part of racket involved in trafficking of minor girls.
The petitioners submitted that people who are against their highly successful public protests are behind the case against them. They were arrested on November 18, 2015 during ‘Operation Big Daddy’ which saw state-wide raids to book culprits involved in online flesh trade.
The two are booked under 366 A (procuration of minor girl), 370 (human trafficking), 370(1) (exploitation of a trafficked person), 120 B(criminal conspiracy) and various sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) 2012.
The court directed the petitioners to execute `75,000 each with two solvent sureties for the like sum. They should appear before the investigating officer on all Mondays and Saturdays for a period of three months.
The court made it clear that they should not in any manner, directly or indirectly involved in propagating or circulating any sexually connotative words or involving in any activities promoting sexual abuse.
The court also restrained them leaving the state and directed to surrender their passport, if any. They should not threaten or intimidate the complainant and the witnesses in the case, the court held.