Kerala police have arrested six people in connection with a paedophilic Facebook page after tracking their online activities for over a month.
The five people arrested include a man called Ummer, who hails from Malappuram district in Kerala and is suspected to be the administrator of the Facebook page “Kochu Sundarikal” (meaning Little Beauties). Ummer, who was living in a West Asian country and operating the page from there, was arrested when he came to his hometown to get married.
The other four people who have been arrested had posted vicious commented on threads on the page, including comments which incited sexual assault. The contents of these comments amount to sexual offences against children under Indian laws.
Although a Thiruvananthapuram-based couple had lodged a complaint against this page the police on September 5, police say they decided to track the suspects’ activities before making a move, as they did not want a repeat of what happened the last time.
In April 2014, the same couple had got Facebook to shut down another page called “Kochu Sundarikal” for paedophilic content. There were no nude photos of children or women on the page, but comments on the page amounted to offences under Indian law.
However, after tracing the location of the administrator to Saudi Arabia, police had to drop the matter as the Kerala police does not have jurisdiction in that country.
Some time ago nother page with the same name was started, and within days, it had around 4,000 Likes. This is when the couple lodged a second complaint.
A senior police official told The News Minute that the team of officials working on the case decided to wait because they did not want give the suspects the opportunity to claim that they were not the users. They wanted to make the case as water-tight as possible.