The Cyber Crime Wing of the Central Crime Branch has arrested YouTuber Madan Manikkam, who has several complaints against him for hosting obscene conversations with minors and women, while live-streaming gaming videos.
On Friday, a police team apprehended him at a house in Dharmapuri. He pleaded with police personnel not to arrest him saying that over 30% of his followers were children and women and he had committed the offences without realising it, said sources. Police said Madan would be brought to the city and remanded to judicial custody after an interrogation. Police have also taken efforts to interrogate others who participated on his chats online.
A manhunt was launched to nab him after he went missing, following the complaints and a storm on social media demanding his arrest.
After P.K. Abishek Rabi from Vadapalani registered a complaint, the city police filed a case under provisions of the Information Technology Act and IPC against Madan and his wife, Kiruthika who are natives of Salem. Madan, who is an engineering graduate, had incurred huge losses in running an eatery in Ambattur. He launched a channel to teach tricks to play video games such as PUBG, in 2019. The games were live streamed on his channel. Even as the government banned PUBG, he used a virtual private network (VPN) to continue to access the game, and continued to live stream the videos through his channel, which had over 8 lakh subscribers.
Police arrested his wife Kiruthika, who was a group administrator, on Wednesday, after the police confirmed that the anonymous woman with whom Madan often conversed in an obscene manner was his wife. Police then took her to Vengaivasal where the couple was living and recovered laptops, computers and mobile phones from the house. She was remanded to judicial custody.
