Jhansi, May 22 (IANS) A special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi has convicted and sentenced an accused to five years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) along with a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh in a child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) case, officials said on Friday.

According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the court of the Special Judge under the POCSO Act pronounced the judgment against accused Ramji on May 22 after finding him guilty in the case related to circulation and storage of child sexual exploitation material through online platforms.

The CBI had registered the case on November 14, 2021, based on source information indicating that a syndicate operating from different parts of India and abroad was allegedly involved in circulating, storing and viewing CSEM through various social media platforms and groups.

Investigators alleged that the accused and others were disseminating objectionable content by sharing links, videos, pictures, texts and posts, besides hosting such material on social media groups and third-party storage and hosting platforms.

During investigation, the central agency found that the accused was operating multiple Gmail IDs which were allegedly used to create several accounts on Pdisk, a video-sharing platform similar to YouTube, under different usernames.

The CBI said several of these accounts contained electronic material depicting children in sexually explicit acts.

The accused allegedly used the Pdisk accounts to circulate pornographic and CSEM content and also derived monetary gains from the activity.

After completing the probe, the CBI filed a charge sheet against the accused on June 30, 2022. A supplementary chargesheet was later filed on December 7, 2022.

The court framed charges against the accused on April 20, 2023, following which the trial commenced.

After examining the evidence and hearing arguments from both sides, the special court convicted the accused and awarded five years of rigorous imprisonment along with a monetary penalty of Rs 1.5 lakh, the officials added.

–IANS

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