NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday registered an FIR against a person from Indore on the allegations that he was involved in a case of online sexual abuse and intimidation of a minor girl from Australia, officials in the agency confirmed.
Identifying the accused as Ankur Shukla, a resident of Indore in Madhya Pradesh, the officials said that the case has been registered against him on the basis of inputs the CBI received through Interpol.
“It was alleged that the accused befriended the said minor girl on Instagram. During a conversation with the said minor girl, he allegedly groomed her into sending him objectionable images and videos,” a senior CBI official alleged.
Based on inputs from the international agency, the CBI developed intelligence regarding the accused and zeroed in on Shukla’s exact location. The CBI also gathered other related evidence, the officials said.
“Searches were conducted at the premises of accused Shukla, which led to recovery of incriminating materials like computer hard disk, mobile phone and other materials,” the official said.
In the FIR, a copy of which was accessed by this newspaper, the CBI alleged that over a period of time, “when the minor girl started being reluctant to share images and videos, the accused started threatening her that he would release her images and videos to her friends and family members”.
As a result of this intimidation, she continued to share videos and images under duress, but later, the victim blocked the accused on the said social media platform, the CBI alleged in the FIR.
The accused, however, again contacted the victim over WhatsApp and further intimidated her, it added.