THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The recent Supreme Court verdict that viewing and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) constitutes an offence under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocsco) has been widely viewed as a game-changer in the fight against child pornography. However, the experience of the Kerala Police Countering Child Sexual Exploitation (CCSE) unit, which routinely conducts special drives against those involved in viewing and circulating of CSAM, speaks otherwise.
The state police have been booking people involved with possession of CSAM under the stringent Pocso Act since Operation P-Hunt was launched in 2017 to nab the offenders. But when several cases came up for hearing, the sections of the Pocso Act were dropped by the court as the prosecution could not produce evidence to prove that the victims depicted in the CSAM were under-aged.
To prove that the victims were minors, the police were required to produce their birth certificates, school certificates or medical report. Since the police could not produce any of those documents in cases were the CSAM were generated from outside the country, the accused were discharged of Pocso charges, said an officer, who is privy to the CCSE activities.
“In many cases registered in Kollam, Kozhikode and Malappuram, we faced setback in the court as Pocso sections did not stand. The reason is that those depicted in the pornography content could not be verified as minors. However, in many of those cases, the IT Act Section 67B were found standing and based on that we got convictions,” said the officer.
Legal expert and former director of prosecution, V C Ismail said the onus was on the prosecution to prove the age of the victims and without that the Pocso sections would not stick. “The only way out for the law enforcement agencies is to identify the victims depicted in the CSAM and garner all necessary evidence from the countries where the crime was committed,” he said.
Former District Child Protection Officer, K K Subair, said the issue was quite serious. “For courts, it’s the evidence that matters. Getting evidence to prove the age of the survivors is almost an impossible task if they hail from abroad. Even in certain cases where the survivors are from within the country, it’s not easy to identify them. This issue we had discussed before and it still persists,” he said.