India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested an official of Uttar Pradesh state's Irrigation Department for allegedly sexually abusing around 50 children, agency officials said Tuesday.
According to the CBI, the accused is a junior engineer who was arrested in the state's Banda district.
"All the victims are said to be aged between five and 16 years. While during searches, we have recovered eight mobile phones, cash around INR 800,000($10,738), sex toys, laptop, and other digital evidence carrying huge amount of child sexual abuse material (CSAM)", CBI spokesperson R.K. Gaur has stated.
An initial investigation has revealed that the accused had been operating over the last 10 years, mainly contacting and sharing child sexual abuse material with other paedophiles globally using the dark net and cloud services abroad, he stated.
"The accused used to bribe the children with mobile phones and other electronic gadgets to keep their mouth shut about his activities", a senior CBI official told Sputnik, while requesting anonymity.
In January of this year, data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which comes under the federal Home Ministry, showed that over 100 children are sexually abused in India every single day.