Koushik Kounr, a cab driver from Orissa who was picked up from his rented house in Mahadevapura by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team on Thursday, was produced before the special CBI court on Friday and taken into custody for further investigations on Friday.
The CBI officials recovered around 470 pornographic clips from him that were stored on a USB drive, along with software to edit and upload clips onto the internet. Among the clips were three videos of a gang rape in Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh, which had created an uproar all across the country.
Koushik (30), an ITI diploma holder, had been staying in his cousin's house in Mahadevapura for the past six months.
Inquiries so far have found that Koushik was downloading porn clips from the Internet and editing it before uploading on various websites. Investigations are on to ascertain whether he was doing it for financial gain, a CBI officer said.
He is slapped with 16 sections of the Indian Penal Code and under IT Act. While preliminary inquiries have revealed that Koushik was working alone, CBI sources said his mobile phone contacts and information stored in electronic devices was being perused to ascertain whether he was a part of a pornographic racket.
Following the surfacing of the gang-rape video, the CBI had registered a case in Kotwali police station in Sitapur district, after an NGO, which was running a ‘Shame The Rapist campaign’, approached the SC seeking directions for detailed investigations.
The CBI zeroed in on Koushik from his IP address and picked him up from his residence on Thursday. Koushik would be taken to Delhi for further investigations on Saturday, said a senior officer.
