Yemeni national punished for viewing and storing child sexual exploitation and abuse material on his mobile phone

The Hindu

17-05-2025

A 60-year-old Yemeni chef employed in Thiruvananthapuram was sentenced to undergo imprisonment till the rising of the court and fined ₹5,000 for viewing and storing child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) on his mobile phone.
Abdullah Ali Abdo Al Hadad, a Yemeni national residing at Eenchakkal, Thiruvananthapuram, was found guilty by the Fast Track Special Court (POCSO), Thiruvananthapuram. Failure to remit the fine would attract simple imprisonment for a further period of one month, the order issued by Rekha R., Special Judge, said. Special Public Prosecutor Vijay Mohan R.S. appeared for the prosecution.
Abdullah was punished under Section 67 B(b) of the Information Technology Act which deals with offences related to the creation, propagation, or use of child pornography, and Section 15(1) (iii) of the Protection of Children Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, which deals with offences related to the storage or possession of pornographic materials involving children.
He was found by the Cyber Cell to have watched such banned material on his mobile phone in December 2020. A subsequent inspection of his mobile phone revealed the presence of CSEAM.
The court decided that imprisonment till rising of the court and fine would serve the cause of justice in this case considering the age of the accused and the absence of criminal antecedents.
The court also ordered that the mobile phone be confiscated and the SIM card destroyed after deleting CSEAM and other obscene material with the assistance of the Forensic Science Lab.
In such cases, even if an accused in charged, conviction is rare as it is very difficult to prove the age of the children in question. In this case, the Prosecution was able to prove that the girls in videos were minors.