CBI detains man from Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur in online child sexual abuse case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested a person from Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur district in connection with an ongoing investigation into an online sexual abuse case, said the federal agency on Saturday, March 18. A case was registered against the 35-year-old accused and other unknown persons for allegedly creating, collecting, downloading, browsing, exchanging/distributing material showing children in the sexually explicit act in electronic form, the agency said.

CBI found Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) images and clips from the Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE) database of Interpol. The images from the Interpol database were examined using digital forensic tools and the location was traced to the Thanjavur district. 

"India joined Interpol ICSE Database last year to give impetus to its efforts of countering the menace of online child sexual exploitation," CBI said.

Following this, searches were carried out at the premises of the accused which led to the recovery of incriminating electronic gadgets. 

#BREAKING | CBI arrests man in Tamil Nadu over child sexual abuse material. Central agency got information from Interpol. #CBI #childabuse #TamilNadu pic.twitter.com/IdujT3CJTQ

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'Accused was sexually abusing a child for last 4 years,' says CBI

"It was alleged that the accused was sexually abusing a child for the last four years and he had captured nude videos/photographs of the minor kid which he had uploaded to his Google Account," the federal agency said.

It added, "It was further alleged that the accused forced 02 minor victims (male and female) to perform penetrative sexual acts on them as well on other minor children, including a  minor victim girl; clicked photographs & recorded video; forced them to watch sexual acts with other adult person; threatened them to publish the pictures/video on social media and bring more minor girls."

It was also alleged that the accused is pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).

Last year in September, CBI launched operation 'Operation Megh-Chakra' and carried out searches in 19 states and a union territory in connection with two cases of circulation of Child Sexual Abuse Material. The operation was based on inputs from the Interpol database in Singapore and intelligence gathered during 2021's Operation Carbon.