Man involved in international child pornography racket released on bail
May 15, 2020
The Lahore High Court has suspended the jail sentence of a man accused of being involved in an international nexus of child pornography and was released on bail.
A judicial magistrate on April 26 had found the convict, Saadat Amin, guilty of belonging to a wider child pornography racket and sentenced him to seven years in prison and a Rs1.2 million fine. It became the first-ever conviction in a child pornography case in Pakistan.
He was arrested from Sargodha by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials, who found more than 650,000 child pornography videos in his possession.
According to Assistant Director Cyber Crime FIA Asif Iqbal, who led the investigation, the convict had confessed to being a part of a child pornography racket during interrogation.
The cyber cell also revealed that Amin was arrested on the complaint of the Norwegian embassy in 2017. The prosecution further said the convict was an active member of an international scam operating online from Pakistan which involved minor children aged 10 to 12 years.
The racketeers used to transmit their pornographic pictures/videos outside the country against a hefty monetary benefit.
In 2016, Pakistan criminalised child pornography in a historic first, making the offense punishable with seven years in prison and a fine of Rs0.7 million. The new amendment, titled Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2015, also criminalised child trafficking within the country.
The initiative came after the country was rocked by a major pedophilia scandal in August 2015, when it was revealed that hundreds of pornographic videos of children from Hussain Khanwala village in the Punjab province had been made and were being circulated.
