THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Unfazed by the efforts being taken by the state police to curb the increasing cyber crimes in the state, including setting up of Cyberdome, several Facebook pages that explicitly promote paedophile activities continue their free run on social media.
The crackdown on the paedophilic Facebook page ‘Kochu Sundarikal’ and the subsequent arrests in connection with the case seem to have made zilch impact as yet another page promoting paedophilic content is up and running. The latest in the list is a page with malicious contents and promoting pictures of child female artists of Malayalam cinema and others. The name of page itself is offensive and abusive. The FB page has contents similar to that of ‘Kochu Sundarikal’ page, which was earlier blocked by the Cyber Cell.
The page was revived by the respective administrators and it has around 1,500 active members and has received 712 ‘likes’, said Cyber Cell officials. Moreover, the members are posting obscene comments with pictures on the page.
Though many users reported this page as ‘fake’ owing to the abusive contents, the page is still active. A Facebook user on condition of anonymity, said that the page was being operated by a network of paedophiles with anonymous and fake identities.
Manoj Abraham, Thiruvananthapuram Range IG, who is also the nodal officer of Cyberdome, said the said Facebook group was under their scanner. “Efforts are on to trace those behind this. We have received clear information on the administrators of the page who are in Kochi. All of them will land in custody in two or three days,” Abraham said.
He also pointed out that the Cyberdome - which started functioning last month at Technopark - had blocked at least 25 such pages since its inception. “The main issue is that the administrators will come up with new pages with different names and contents. However, we will take strict measures to stop such trends,” Abraham added.
What the Law Says
As per the cyber law, posting obscene content or pornography on the social media is punishable under Section 67 and 66B of the IT Act. If proved, the culprits could get three years of jail term and a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh. Those who post pornographic content could be sentenced for five years, and fined up to Rs 10 lakh.
