One of the most disturbing finds in the investigation of the recent gang rape-of a six-year-old child at Bangalore's Vibgyor school is the presence of child sexual abuse imagery in the laptop of one of the suspects.
Former police commissioner R Auradkar first arrested the school's skating instructor Mustafa, whose seized phone and laptop was found to have been full of disturbing imagery of children being abused and raped.
The investigations revealed that Mustafa has been a repeat offender, and was fired from an earlier school for "gross misconduct", and for touching young girls inappropriately despite repeated warnings.
The new police commissioner, MN Reddi, who replaced Auradkar following a public outcry, made a fresh round of arrests: two gym instructors who were friends with Mustafa. While he did not declare Mustafa innocent or let him off, he did not reveal much about the charges against Mustafa. "We are still investigating his role to find out whether he destroyed the evidence, because he was friends with Indiragiri and Pasha," said Reddi.
There was no word on charging Mustafa because of the illegal content on his laptop. This brings us to a disturbing question: How many Indians are looking at child porn? And, how many of them are punished?
Unlike adult porn, any porn that involves a child is illegal in India. There is no specific law in the country to punish or monitor child porn. But there are various sections that look at the offence.
There are sections 292 and 293 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), that penalise the possession of obscene content, and the sale of this content to minors respectively. Then there is section 67 (B) of the Information Technology Act 2000. Comprehensive in its reach, the section looks at creation and transmission of child sex abuse imagery, enticing children and facilitating their abuse. The maximum punishment awarded for these non-bailable offences is five years, and seven years for repeat offenders. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offence Act (2012), also penalises child porn, punishable with up to 3 years in prison.
Despite the legislative framework, the conviction rate is dismal. Of the data that is available, the number of child pornography cases in 2007, 2008 and 2009 were 99, 105 and 139. In these cases, there were 86, 90 and 141 arrests, respectively.
Cyber law expert Karnika Seth says that of all the cyber crime cases, parents seem most reluctant to report child porn cases. "I have had many cases of cyber stalking, cyber bullying among children. But, sociological factors usually stop parents from reporting these crimes," says Seth.
Some of the difficulties that Seth faces in these cases is the lack of ISP-reporting. "The biggest hurdle is to track IP addresses of these websites. To add to that, India does not have clear standards of due diligence, internet service providers (ISPs) are not obliged to help. While most do not have records, others do not proactively monitor the records."
According to a 2007 study of child abuse by the ministry of women and child development with CRY and UNICEF, 30.22% child respondents admitted to being exposed to pornographic pictures while, 16.97% admitted to being forced to view private body parts of abusers.
Vidya Reddy of TULIR: Centre for the prevention and healing of child sexual abuse, says that people mistake child porn for pornography viewed by children. She therefore prefers to choose the term 'child sexual abuse images'. "Abusers don't understand that every click is a form of abuse on the child. The intersection of technology and sexual violence has changed the way paedophiles behave," says Reddy. She said that in the cases that she has dealt with, almost all of them were perpetuated through the use of a mobile phone.
Due to the lack of knowledge, most people go to the judicial rape section, instead of reporting the case under the relevant section. "People barely know of the POCSO Act, or section 67 (B) of the IT Act. Our laws are comprehensive enough to punish even cartoons that depict children in sexual acts," says Reddy.
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