TIRUPPUR (INDIA)
Times Now [Mumbai, India]
March 4, 2022
A 50-year-old priest has been arrested for allegedly uploading child pornography on social media in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruppur district. The accused has been arrested under sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POSCO) 2012 and the Information Technology (IT) Act 2000. The complaint came from a US-based NGO.
The police said that the complaint was made by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which is a US-based NGO. NCMEC found the content and informed the Indian authorities.
After the complaint from NCMEC, the Tiruppur Police tracked down the suspect using the IP address and phone number of the accused. The suspect was identified as V. Vaithiyanathan, a temple priest in the district. He was arrested and booked by the Tamil Nadu police.
He has been booked under section 13 which deals with “Use of child for pornographic purposes” along with section 14(2) which pertains to “punishment for using child for pornographic purposes” of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012 and section 67(B)(b) which says “whoever creates text or digital images, collects, seeks, browses, downloads, advertises, promotes, exchanges or distributes material in any electronic form depicting children in obscene or indecent or sexually explicit manner” of the Information Technology (IT) Act 2000.
It was noted that the authorities heeded to a complaint by an overseas NGO and took immediate action. The chain of command and information was followed down to the local level police station to responsibly nab the accused.
According to the police, the temple priest had uploaded pornographic content related to children on Facebook.