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Child porn: Lt colonel gets bail

An Esplanade magistrate court on Wednesday granted bail to lieutenant colonel Jagmohan Balbir Singh, who was arrested on the charge of child pornography.

Singh's lawyer, Dilip Bagwe, argued that since Singh's computer hard disks were seized, there was no question of tampering with the evidence. He also claimed that Singh won't run away as then he would face court-martial. Bagwe assured the court that his client would cooperate with the court.

The court granted Singh bail on a personal bond of Rs25,000 and ordered him to present himself to the police every alternate day.

The police had sought extension of Singh's police custody stating that forensic reports of the hard disks were still awaited. They said they were also waiting for the details of his credit card transactions and mobile phone bill.However, the court granted him bail citing that probe in the case was over.

Officers of the cyber crime investigation cell had arrested Singh Mumbai on May 6. He was accused of downloading and uploading pornographic content from websites.

The police seized Singh's computer and two hard disks which contained pornographic videos of children between three to 10 years.

On Tuesday, the crime branch had clarified that Singh was not involved in filming child pornography.

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.

Lieutenant colonel was nailed after three weeks' watch

Crime branch sleuths found child pornography material downloaded on his computer

It took three weeks for the cyber crime investigation cell (CCIC) of the crime branch to nail lieutenant colonel Jagmohan Balbir Singh, who was held for uploading child pornography material on websites on Thursday.


The CCIC sleuths moved into action after being informed that pornographic material involving children was being uploaded on and downloaded from a computer in Mumbai. They soon traced the Internet protocol address of the computer involved - it was provided by the German - and its location.


But the difficult part had just begun. Since the person involved was a senior army officer, the crime branch officer, the crime branch officials needed to be doubly sure of his direct was being misused by someone else. The sleuths had to work that problem out with caution.


"We had to be 100% sure before laying our hands on Singh. We had kept out surveillance high near his residence to ascertain how many people visited his house at Colaba," said a CCIC official. It was clear soon that nobody visited Singh's residence and the computer in question was used by his family members only.


"At around 3.30pm on Thursday, we went to Singh's house in his absence. We disclosed our identity to the family members and started looking for his computer, downloading of pornographic videos was on," said the officer.


Singh arrived within minutes and he was left speechless at the discovery of the downloading of pornographic material on his computer. " He admitted to committing the crime," the officer said.


Over 150 videos and clips were already downloaded. "he had also downloaded two computer software's on which such pornographic videos were freely available. The server of these software's was found to be in the United States," he said.


The police have also seized Singh's personal computer and two hard disks of 80 GB memory. Singh was produced before a local court and has been remanded to police custody till May 12.


Originally from Mohali in Punjab, Singh worked as a lieutenant colonel in the supply and transport department of the army before going on a study leave in 2009. Singh has completed 22 years in service and was posted in Mumbai for past 2.5 years. Singh stays with his wife and two children in Namdar Manzil building at Colaba.

Another case in Chennai

• William heum, 56, a Dutch national claiming to be a social worker, was arrested in Tamil Nadu last year on charges of uploading child pornographic videos on the internet. In February, he was released on bail by a local court in Chennai

• Heum was arrested by the cyber crime cell of the Chennai police after a tip-off from the Interpol that he was uploading child pornographic material on the internet. Heum was also arrested in 2002 on charges of sexually abusing children at an orphanage run by him in Mahabalipuram