Goa: Man Arrested By CBI On Charges Of Sexually Abusing Children, Selling Illicit Videos

Goa Man arrested by CBI: A Goa-based man has been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) for allegedly sexually abusing 25-30 children. The officials confirmed on Tuesday that the accused was selling videos of the acts filmed to Indians and foreigners through the dark web and social media platforms.

On June 22, the CBI booked the accused of sexually abusing children after the agency got information about his activities. Reportedly, they got leads of the case during the probe against a Chitrakoot-based alleged paedophile, an engineer in the Uttar Pradesh irrigation department.

According to Tribune India, the agency has been on the lookout for the survivors of the Goa-based alleged paedophile in the past year and managed to identify about 25 of them, a few of them are adults now. Currently, the identity of the accused is being withheld as the probe is at a sensitive stage, as per reports.

Some survivors of the child abuse case are unwilling to come forward owing to the social taboo associated with such cases.

CBI spokesperson R C Joshi said that the accused was presented before a court for cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in Goa which remanded him to judicial custody. He confirmed that the Goa-based man was involved in the sexual abuse of children in the state as well as Maharashtra. The accused also recorded these acts on mobile phones, digital cameras and other electronic devices.

The agency went on to reveal that the accused has been filming and sharing this child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to Indians and foreigners using the dark web.

"It was also alleged that the accused was using emails for connecting with other paedophiles outside the country; the internet to access cloud-based storage services for storing the illegal CSAM content; accessing free photo-sharing websites based in other countries and using other social networking websites and platforms i.e. Instagram, Whatsapp etc. for connecting to individuals abroad for sharing CSAM in huge quantities," Joshi said.

The official informed that upon searching “a mobile phone, hard drive, pen drive and laptop” allegedly used by the accused to access CSAM were recovered.