Thousands of men and women across India marched in protest against the reported rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor in Kolkata last month. In all this menace a darker side of the country’s digital landscape emerged, when encrypted apps like Telegram began advertising rape videos for as little as 99 rupees.
While flaming torches lit the streets, online marketplaces saw a surge in demand for such illegal content.
However, police officials confirmed that this is not a new phenomenon.
Senior law enforcement personnel further said that the sale of rape videos, child pornography, and other disturbing sexual assault footage has been ongoing for years.
The videos have now easily found a new online market which was once confined to CDs and pen drives in back-alley markets, making them more accessible than ever.
The high-speed internet and encrypted messaging apps have supported the commerce surrounding these videos in a more sophisticated way.
Sellers now accept payments via online platforms such as PayPal and UPI, further fuelling the demand.
The ease of access has led to a troubling trend: each time a high-profile rape case captures national attention, online searches for related videos see a massive spike.
For instance, following the recent and horrific rape and murder of the Kolkata doctor, Google Trends data shows a significant increase in searches for videos allegedly linked to the crime.
Similar trends were observed after former Janata Dal (Secular) MP Prajwal Revanna was accused of serial sexual assaults in May, and after reports surfaced of women being raped and paraded naked in Manipur in 2023.
“There is a huge market for rape videos, and we have just seen the tip of the iceberg,” a senior Delhi Police officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said.
The officer further said that users may not find all the content that they search for but, the keyword games used by the sellers lure the customers into searching for pornography content related to real-life incidents.
In one such incident, a Telegram group linked to the Kolkata case, a seller offered 820 rape videos for just 99 rupees—equating to about 12 paise per video.
According to reports, a seller named 'Dorimon' said he had more than 820 rape videos to offer for just Rs 99.
This translates to just 12 paise for a single video. This is how dirt-cheap rape videos are being sold online.
'Dorimon' even shared a Paytm QR code for the payment transaction.
When asked about the source of the videos, 'Dorimon' replied, "I have also bought them from different sellers".
However, the sellers are not just confined to India. Telegram is full of foreign sellers selling rape and child rape videos to Indians.
A Portuguese seller, 'Cpmega', told IndiaToday.In that, he had 50 rape videos to offer for a premium price of $20 (Rs 1,700).
The 50 videos he promised were a mix of Indian and foreign rape videos.
"Do you have PayPal?" 'Cpmega' asked while discussing payment options. He also added that a credit card could also work for the payment.
Police officers said these videos are often filmed by the perpetrators themselves, who use them as tools for blackmail or extortion.
Once the videos are leaked they are sold rather rapidly in online platforms. Such illicit videos are also sold in bulk in physical markets in Delhi’s Palika Bazar and Lucknow’s Hazratganj are infamously known as hubs for this illicit trade.
Experts like Dr Sneha Sharma, a consultant psychiatrist in Delhi, believe the problem is deeply rooted in societal issues, including the lack of sex education and the normalization of violent sexual content.
“Violence in the culture is penetrating our minds,” Dr. Sharma said. “Even those who appear normal to us might be socially deviant.”
The tackling of cyber sexual abuse is quite difficult especially in the times of artificial intelligence, according to the police officers.
The sale of such videos is, though, prohibited under Section 294 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, tracing the source of these videos on encrypted platforms like Telegram is difficult.
It is difficult to track the source of people selling these videos on Telegram.
"Circulating such videos isn't possible on Facebook or Instagram because of Meta's policy. On WhatsApp and Telegram, both are encrypted apps, here all kinds of videos are shared," says a senior UP cybercrime cop, explaining the difference between the platforms.
Some videos may even be deepfakes or staged enactments, further complicating efforts to curb their spread.
"I do not think that all the videos available are genuine," the officer says, indicating that some of the clips could be enactments. "We also have to check if deepfakes are being used to create such videos before reaching any conclusion," the officer adds.
If not all but an alarming majority of the rape videos circulating on the internet are genuine, say police officers and experts.
Triveni Singh, a former superintendent of Uttar Pradesh’s cybercrime department, said that artificial intelligence could be a key tool in filtering out rape videos, much like it has been used to battle the circulation of child pornography.
"Yes, rape videos are circulating online. Even child pornography used to be circulated, but a filter was created to eliminate such content.
AI became an ally here. It was used to filter out all child pornographic content. Now there is a national gateway against such videos," says Triveni Singh, former SP of UP's cybercrime department.
A similar filter can be created against rape videos too, he suggests.
"The government should make a national filter against rape videos also. This will solve the problem of circulation on all the platforms. This is the only way to fix it," says cyber-crime expert Singh.
Follow us
