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Indian court gives bail to teenager in sex video scandal
December 26, 2004
New Delhi -- A teenager who sparked a national scandal after using a camera
phone to film himself having oral sex was granted bail Wednesday despite
prosecution demands he be put in psychiatric care for showing "animal
instincts."
Juvenile court magistrate Santosh Snehi Mann released the 17-year-old on bail
after his parents put up 25,000 rupees (543 dollars) and surrendered the
minor's passport.
The prosecution argued the Delhi private schoolboy---who sent the 90-second
clip of a classmate performing oral sex on him to friends--was "mentally
perverted", but the magistrate termed the video sex a "misadventure."
The court ordered the pupil, who cannot be named, to undergo a month of
counselling and directed his parents to submit weekly reports on his behaviour.
Police had pleaded in a written petition to the court that the schoolboy should
remain at a state-run observation home for juveniles.
"The act of the boy was obscene, depraved and showed his animal instincts and
he should undergo psychiatric treatment and counseling," it said, adding that
if freed he could further destroy evidence and "blackmail" the girl he filmed
in the sex session.
"The boy has been continuously tampering with the evidence including destroying
the cell phone with which he recorded the objectionable pictures and changing
the decor of the room in which the incident took place."
The video, which came to public attention when it was sold through an internet
auction website, has shocked parents in sexually conservative India.
The teenager was freed a day after the Delhi High Court Tuesday gave bail to
Avinash Bajaj, the head of domestic Internet auction site Bazee.com owned by US
giant eBay Inc., who was arrested over the online sale of the sex clip.
Bajaj, a US citizen, was arrested Friday under the Indian Information
Technology Act which bans transmission and sale of obscene data electronically.
If convicted, Bajaj could be jailed for up to five years, fined 100,000 rupees
(2,250 dollars) or both, police said.
On Monday, the US State Department said it was following the Bajaj case at the
"highest levels."
The scandal has led to uproar in parliament and sparked demands for stringent
laws on the use of intrusive mobile telephones and changes in the country's
laws on the use of pornographic material by Internet portals.
Parliamentarians cutting across party lines Wednesday renewed demands for
immediate changes in India's information technology law "to prevent misuse of
technology through which young minds were being corrupted."
Police have also arrested an engineering student from a university in eastern
India last week, saying he posted the video clip on Baazee.com.
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