Bhopal son-dad duo held for harassing Kolkata girl

KOLKATA: A father-son duo from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh was remanded in custody till November 19 by a city court on Friday on charges of harassing a minor girl from Kolkata. The teenager is a Class-X student of a prominent school in central Kolkata and was apparently befriended online by 19-year-old Anukul Bajaj from Sehore in Bhopal. He then allegedly started harassing her.The number used by Anukul is registered in the name of his father Nirmal Kumar. While the youth was remanded in police custody, his father was remanded in judicial custody.
An FIR was lodged at the Tallah police station by the girl’s father on September 20 this year. A case was started against the two under sections 120B, 354D, 506 and 509 of the IPC read with sections 12 and 14 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso Act) and sections 66E and 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 accordingly. Surajit Banerjee, additional officer-in-charge, Tallah police station, left with his team and succeeded in locating the accused at Chanakyapuri in Bhopal’s Sehore. They obtained transit remand of the father-son duo and brought them to Kolkata on Friday where they were produced before Chinmay Chattopadhyay, additional district and sessions judge, Second Court, Sealdah.

“The two pleaded for bail but I submitted how the teenager from Kolkata was cheated and harassed by Anukul Bajaj who introduced himself to her as Rajat Sharma alias Vansh alias Shajeb Shaikh. After some interaction over Instagram, the accused threatened to create nude images of the minor girl and circulate them unless she sent him some original ones of herself. He did this through another account after the girl blocked him. He threatened that the nude images created by him would ruin her family in Kolkata. Finally, the girl sent him some of her nude photographs that he distributed among her classmates through Instagram,” public prosecutor Vivek Sharma submitted in court, seeking custody of the duo.
Judge Chattopadhyay was also informed how Instagram officials had confirmed that the account in the name of Rajat Sharma was created using a mobile number registered with Nirmal Kumar alias Nirmal Bajaj. The judge then refused to grant bail to the duo and remanded them to custody. While Section 12 of the Pocso Act deals with sexual harassment, Section 14 mentions a sentence of up to 10 years for using a minor for pornography.
“In this case, the father is also liable as he allowed the mobile number acquired by him to be misused. It will be difficult for him to dissociate himself from the crime. This is why people need to monitor how numbers registered in their names are used by those using them,” Sharma added.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)