3 held from Nerul for operating websites with explicit content

Panaji: The crime branch on Thursday arrested three persons for alleged unlawful creation, operation and management of websites engaged in the dissemination and publication of sexually explicit, lascivious and objectionable content.

A combined team of the crime branch and the social media monitoring cell kept escort sites under surveillance. On March 9, an FIR was registered against 22 such websites and all were blocked too, crime branch SP Rahul Gupta said.

During technical investigation of these websites, Narayan Rao, a resident of Karnataka, was identified as operating the sites along with others, Gupta said.

He said that during investigation, multiple teams were formed by the crime branch, which moved to different locations in Goa, and with the help of technical assistance and human intelligence, a successful raid was conducted at a location where Rao was staying.

“Sleuths arrested 40-year-old Rao, 33-year-old Shahbaz Khan, a native of Madhya Pradesh and 36-year-old Manjunath Shah Shetty, a resident of Karnataka,” Gupta said. He said that during the raid, police recovered the mobile phone whose number was displayed on the escort site. A laptop and four more mobile phones were also recovered during the search.

“During the analysis of bank account details, it was found that all three accused persons received money from survivors via UPI. Thus, it was proved they were earning from prostitution. Hence, provisions of the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act were added,” Gupta said.

The crime branch arrested all the accused persons from Nerul and they were remanded in three days’ police custody. Gupta said that during custodial interrogation and after preliminary analysis of mobiles and laptops, it was revealed that Rao is also the mastermind of a prostitution racket operational in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Delhi etc.

The crime branch is also analysing financial transactions of all the accused and is in search of the survivors from whom they received money online. “The account of the main accused with Rs 2.3 lakh has been frozen,” Gupta said.