Lt Colonel caught uploading child porn on websites

Arrest in Mumbai following tip- off form German police; army to conduct own probe

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 involved in producing these videos.

The arrest followed a tip-off from the German police to the Interpol a few months ago. It stated that dirty videos involving children were being uploaded on pornographic websites from a computer in Mumbai. The information was passed in to the Cyber crime Investigation Cell (CCIC) 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. The address belonged to the computer of some senior army officer. We decided to work more on the information since there were chances that someone else could be using his computer," said joint commissioner of police, crime, Himanshu Roy.

The police zeroed in on Singh, a resident of Namdar Manzil near Colaba market, after tracking the computer for three weeks and making sure that it was him who was involved in uploading and downloading pornographic videos.

He was arrested from his residence on Thursday.

"On questioning, Singh admitted that he has been uploading and downloading child pornographic videos and pictures on, and from, websites," said Roy. The police have booked him under section 67 (B) of the Information Technology Act. The punishment under this section is five years of imprisonment and fine of Rs 10 lakh.

"As of now, it appears that he was doing it out of perversity, with no commercial motive. He also admitted that he had been doing it for the past few years," said Roy. However, police well be probing whether he was into making these videos. They are also looking into the source of the videos.

Singh also visited paid websites and some of the content in these sites had pornographic acts involving children of three and four years, said senior inspector Mukund Pawar. "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 will be blocking the websites on which the contents were uploaded.

"We are going to prepare a report and send it to the army," said Roy.