Days after the arrest of Raj Kundra in connection with the pornography case and the ongoing police investigation, BJP legislator Ashish Shelar, on Sunday, urged Home minister Amit Shah to direct the CBI, ED and MCA to investigate all OTT and port platforms for financial and criminal illegalities and attach such assets and prosecute the guilty. The finance ministry must instruct all banks and payment platforms to block all gateways and means of citizens transferring money overseas or to Indian websites and platforms.
In a two-page letter, Shelar said there are several reports of links between porn and drug mafia elements; and such cases must be taken up by the NIA. “A multi-ministerial taskforce of the CBI, ED, I&B, ministries of information technology, finance and corporate affairs must be formed to act against all pornographic OTT apps and websites. The IT ministry must be directed to develop strict protocols to block porn websites and remove all such apps. A penalty must be imposed on telcos, internet providers who allow such access to boost the internet data usage,” he said.
Shelar suggested that a national porn and child porn helpline, social medial handle and email must be set up for citizens to report all such cases. “The I&B ministry must be directed to bring all OTT content under the censor board regulation. The end-user authentication before accessing all audit content must be made mandatory to ensure children and teenagers are not exposed,” he said.
He added that the Raj Kundra case and Mumbai police probe has revealed exploitation of youngsters by porn industry criminals and financial irregularities. “It is alleged that a pornographic app run by Raj Kundra was generating over Rs 20 crore per month as subscription revenue. This content was created by exploiting youngsters. There are over 40 illegal porn content apps and websites that are earning crores through subscription. The availability of porn content is having a negative impact on our youth and children,” he added. Shelar said there has been an increase in child porn cases. In Maharashtra, over 15,000 child porn clips have been uploaded since 2019 and 213 FIRs registered. There has been a 45% increase in Pocso cases from 2017 till 2019.
