Youth held for posting obscene pictures

The cyber crime cell of Odisha police Thursday arrested a youth on charges of uploading morphed and obscene pictures of a girl on the internet. The arrested youth, identified as Gautam Pandit (23) of Soro Balasore, has admitted to the crime. Pandit was nabbed at Rourkela and investigation of the case is in progress.

Pandit had apparently an affair with the girl who later broke up with him. However, the youth did not relent and kept pressurising her for marriage. He even issued threats. Later, he allegedly created a fake Facebook ID of the girl and uploaded objectionable pictures by morphing them. When the girl’s family lodged a complaint with the local police, the youth tendered an unconditional apology and vowed not to repeat the mistake.

However, instead of mending his ways, Pandit kept harassing the girl and posted morphed pictures to tarnish her reputation. The matter came to light after friends of the girl informed her about the derogatory posts. The girl then lodged another complaint with the cyber police station in Cuttack on December 31 last year. When the matter was brought to Cyber Police Station, a case was registered and he was arrested.

This was the fifth such incident in 2013 where people have been arrested on charges of uploading morphed and obscene pictures in different websites and Facebook.

“Although we have been receiving complaints and acting on them, many victims still are not turning up. We would like them to use the help of Cyber Police Station which has technical expertise to track down the perpetrators,” Additional Director General of Crime Branch BK Sharma said.