Karnataka government’s refusal to admit 113 child porn cases shocks high court

BENGALURU: The high court on Friday described as shocking the state government’s callous approach towards 113 cases of child sexual abuse, including pornography, revealed in data published by the ministry of women and child development in September 2018.
“It is difficult to educate government officers beyond a particular level,” a division bench headed by chief justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka said, while indicating that it may direct for the personal appearance of the senior-most officer of the police department (DGP) over the failure to register basic FIRs, an elementary exercise under criminal law, in the cases.
The bench wondered how the state could be so callous and claim that no such incidents have been reported when the central ministry published data about 113 cases of sexual abuse targeting children housed in welfare centres, and the offences are serious in nature.
The court is hearing a PIL filed by Bachpan Bachao Andolan and Sampurna Behura, both New Delhi-based organisations. They have sought a direction for formulating a new or amended state child protection programme as the old policy restricts itself to children in school.
Citing the high number of cases found in the ministry’s data, both the organisations have sought for a status report on rehabilitation of the children and legal action against erring officials, apart from a probe by a special investigation team into the cases.