The crime branch of the Mumbai police has arrested a serving lieutenant colonel of the Indian Army for uploading child pornography content on websites.
The police are investigating whether the officer, Jagmohan Balbir Singh, 42, was also involved in producing these videos.
The arrest followed a tip-off from police in Germany to Interpol a few months ago. The alert said dirty videos involving children were being uploaded on pornographic websites from a computer in Mumbai.
The information was passed on to the cyber crimes investigation cell of the crime branch through diplomatic channels, according to the Mumbai police.
“We were able to trace the IP (internet protocol) address of the computer involved," said joint commissioner of police (crime) Himanshu Roy. "The address belonged to the computer of a senior army officer. We decided to work more on the information since there were chances that someone else could be using his computer.”
The police zeroed in on Singh, a resident of Namdar Manzil near Colaba Market, after tracking the computer for three weeks and making sure it was he who was uploading and downloading the pornographic videos.
The colonel was arrested from his residence on Thursday.
“On questioning, Singh admitted that he had been uploading and downloading child pornographic videos and pictures on and from websites,’’ Roy said.
The police have booked the army officer under section 67(B) of the Information Technology Act. The punishment under this section is five years' imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs10 lakh.
“As of now, it appears that he was doing it out of perversity and there was no commercial motive involved. He also admitted that he had been doing it for the past few years,’’ said Roy.
But the police will be investigating whether Singh was into making these videos as well, and whether others were involved. They are also looking into the source of the videos.
Singh also visited paid websites where some of the content depicted obscene acts involving children between three and four years of age, senior inspector Mukund Pawar said.
“We will question other persons and scrutinise Singh’s credit card and bank details to ascertain whether he had paid or received money while indulging in child pornography,” Pawar said.
Roy said the police were in the process of blocking the websites on which the contents were uploaded. “We are going to prepare a report and send it to the army,” said Roy.
