The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday carried out searches at 56 locations in 20 states in connection with two cases of circulation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) online as part of Operation ‘Meghachakra’, top officials told CNN-News18.
The searches were based on inputs from Interpol Singapore and intelligence obtained during last year’s Operation Carbon, conducted against peddlers of CSAM on the Internet using cloud storage. Under Operation Carbon, suspects in 13 States and one Union Territory were raided. Apart from the accused Indian nationals, the other suspects were from countries like Pakistan (36), Canada (35), the United States (35), Bangladesh (31), Sri Lanka (30), Nigeria (28), Azerbaijan (27), Yemen (24), Malaysia (22), Saudi Arabia (19), Indonesia, (19), Egypt (21), United Arab Emirates (19), United Kingdom (17), South Africa (15), Nepal (15), Algeria (17), Iraq (14), Afghanistan (12), Kenya (12), and Oman (12).
Saturday’s raids are being conducted across Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Telangana and Tamil Nadu among other states.
The operation is targeted at cloud storage facilities used by the peddlers to circulate audio-visuals of illicit sexual activities with minors, thus earning the code ‘Meghachakra’. The agency, being the first one to set up a cyber-crime unit, has hit CSAM peddlers across India, an official said.
CBI is also the nodal agency for the Interpol, which has an International Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE) image and video database, which allows investigators from member countries to share data on cases of child sexual abuse.
ICSE has helped identify 23,500 survivors and 10,752 offenders worldwide from the 2.3 million images and videos the database has. It has provision of sharing data – both in open network that can be accessed by all the countries as well as with specific countries.
The raids come after the Supreme Court last week asked the centre to submit a detailed report on the mechanism in place to monitor the cases involving circulation of child pornographic material.
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