January 22, 2025

The busting of a child porn racket run by a 24-year old in Kerala throws up disturbing questions of morality before the society. Sharaf Ali was administrator of a like-minded group on Telegram and also ran a child porn site. He encouraged people to post pornographic pictures of children, telling them that neither he nor they would ever be arrested. That people flocked as voyeurs is bad enough but what is sickening is that they also posted original (as distinct from lifted from other sites) pornographic pictures of children in various stages of undress and even in sexual acts.

One whistleblower has testified that people posted videos of men raping a four year old and fathers posting nude pictures of their unsuspecting children. While the last is always doubtful given the faceless nature of internet, the first is entirely possible as Indians are now taking pride in sharing their disgusting acts. This is evident in the way people post videos of throwing dogs from upper floors or killing and burning a man, ostensibly as revenge for love jihad. But child pornography is a different thing altogether and raping children and then circulating videos of the act is the most heinous crime perpetrated by grossly sick minds.

India, with its lack of toilets, predominance of open bathing places and widespread poverty that sees even grown-up girls moving around in tattered clothes provides ample opportunity for click-happy sick minds to take offending pictures and post them on social media or dedicated porn sites. The law is very strict in this regard and the enforcement agencies quietly do their work with efficiency as and when things come to light (the present case was flagged by international agencies). But society must also pull its weight by naming and shaming such people. These people deserve both legal and social punishment. The nature of punishment society can hand out to them – maybe community service - can be discussed in various foras.

image courtesy: News10ABC