Bhubaneswar: A 24-year-old man, Sayed Khan, was arrested from Cuttack district on Monday for allegedly accessing child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) on his mobile phone, police reported on Tuesday.
Khan, a resident of Mata Nagar in Salipur area, works part-time at a commercial establishment in Cuttack. Authorities clarified that storing or viewing sexually exploitative content involving children is a criminal offence, equivalent to producing or circulating such material.
The state crime branch’s Children and Women Online Abuse Monitoring Unit detected Khan after receiving intelligence through an international monitoring collaboration. Alerts flagged him for accessing CSAM on social media and messaging platforms.
“Upon receiving inputs from the crime branch, we seized Khan’s mobile. Incriminating evidence was found, and he was taken into custody. His device has been sent to the cyber forensic laboratory for detailed examination,” said SP of Cuttack (Rural), Vinit Agrawal.
Officials emphasized that while adult pornography is legal, accessing child exploitation material is punishable under Indian law. Cyber agencies track attempts to access such content in real-time.
This monitoring is part of a collaboration between the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and the US-based National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), established via a 2019 MoU. Suspicious activity is reported to NCRB and state authorities for further action.
