Delhi: Delhi Police arrests three for involvement in child pornography

Delhi: According to Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chairperson Swati Maliwal the Delhi Police informed the agency that they have arrested three persons in connection with circulatinchild pornography that was available on Twitter.

Police have, however, refused to comment regarding the arrests.

DCW, in a statement, said that Ms Maliwal had written to the director of Central Bureau of Investigation seeking his intervention in the matter of availability of child porn and rape videos and photographs on the social media website. She had also asked the CBI director to register an FIR against Twitter and also arrest the criminals involved in circulating these objectionable photos and videos of women and children on the social media platform, Hindustan Times reported.

Maliwal said that senior Delhi Police officers informed them on Friday that they have set up eight expert teams to probe the matter and have conducted raids across the country, and arrested three persons in connection with the matter so far. However, she said that this wasn't sufficient and the police needs to do more in matters like these.

The commission, which had earlier identified over 20 tweets showing videos and photos of women and children and also identified side 14 tweets depicting sexual activities with children.

Earlier, on September 20, Maliwal had summoned the policy head of Twitter India and Delhi Police Cyber Cell over tweets depicting child pornography and rape videos of women and children. She alleged that investigations had revealed that some of these Twitter accounts engaging in these criminal acts appeared to be running a racket of some kind wherein they sought money for providing pornographic and rape videos of children.

In response, Twitter removed at least 20 tweets flagged by the commission from its website and Delhi Police registered an FIR under sections 67/67-A/67-B of the IT Act. The commission, however, termed Twitter’s response in the matter as ‘unsatisfactory’.

A statement issued by the commission said that while Twitter claims to have zero tolerance policy towards child sexual abuse, they are unable to explain the presence of hundreds of videos displaying child porn and rape of children and women on their platform.

"Delhi Police initiated action based on our complaint. I have also written to the CBI director seeking his urgent intervention in the matter. Twitter must be held accountable... The commission will continue its action in the matter until stringent steps are taken by Twitter and child pornographic content is removed from the platform,” said Maliwal.

Meanwhile, after the DCW action, reports came in that major global companies, such as Dyson, Mazda and chemicals company Ecolab, have suspended marketing campaigns or removed advertisements from Twitter because their promotions are appearing alongside tweets soliciting child pornography. Even founder CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk tweeted about the report stating it as, “Extremely concerning.”