Now showing: South India's dirty picture!

It is difficult to legally pursue most pornographic cases as shady videos shot in India are often smuggled out, says Vicky Nanjappa

South India has always been the unofficial headquarters for majority of India’s pornographic operations.

But recent reports about forcible shooting of objectionable videos and child pornography emanating from India’s southern states are worrying investigators.

Recently, some men from Mangalore were accused of forcibly shooting a video of a couple in a compromising position and then blackmailing them by threatening to leak the video on the Internet.

The accused had threatened the couple with dire consequences unless they ‘performed’ in front of the camera. They were told to cough up lakhs if they did not want the video to be released on the Internet.

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Of the 1,413 criminal cases related to pornography filed across India in the past two years, as many as 609 are from South India.

While Kerala registered the highest number of cases -- 386 -- Maharashtra came a distant second with 199 cases. Karnataka witnessed as many as 114 such cases while Madhya Pradesh, with 100 cases, took the fourth slot in the ignominious list.

The horrifying subtext of these statistics lies in the fact that 30 per cent of these cases are related to child pornography.

While as many as 989 people have been booked in cases of pornography, the conviction rate is a meager 8 per cent. It is difficult to prove such cases in Indian courts as pornographic videos shot in India are often smuggled out, mostly to Gulf nations.

Most pornographic videos are uploaded via proxy servers and police rarely manage to get their hands on the culprits who shoot them. Most of the accused in the custody of police are either middlemen or those who ferry these obscene videos from one point to another.

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A recent racket, busted in Allapuzza in India’s unofficial pornographic haven of Kerala, involved 1,700 girls who had been forced to perform sexual acts in videos and engage in prostitution off-camera. These women had been lured away from their homes and sold off to pimps for any amount between Rs 30,000 to Rs 10,000.

Police believe that a powerful porn syndicate operating from Dubai controls most of this X-rated racket in India.

The many rich residents of Gulf nations form a major part of the clientele for murky pornography produced in India.

The syndicate also caters to the millions of netizens who pay substantial amounts of money to watch these pornographic videos on the internet.

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