Hyderabad: A 29-year-old YouTuber was apprehended from Bengaluru on Wednesday in connection with an FIR filed over "inappropriate" comments about a child, the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau said.
Praneeth Hanumantu, a native of Andhra Pradesh and a resident of Begumpet here, is the main accused in the FIR registered on July 7 at Cyber Crime police station in the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau, an official release said. "He has been absconding since the matter came to light," it said.
The case involves a group of individuals engaged in "vulgar" and "obscene" conversations about a father-daughter relationship on a YouTube podcast, the release said. The accused is being produced before the local magistrate in Bengaluru for a transit warrant (to bring him to Hyderabad). Efforts are on to apprehend the other accused, the release added.
On July 7, an FIR was registered by Telangana Cyber Security Bureau after Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and his deputy Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said appropriate action will be taken on the issue of child abuse on social media, which was highlighted by Telugu actor Sai Dharam Tej.
Tej in a post on 'X' had said, "Monsters like these go unnoticed on the very much utilised social platform doing child abuse in the disguise of so-called Fun & Dank. Child Safety is the need of the hour". The actor tagged chief ministers and deputy cms of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and requested them to take necessary action to curb horrific acts like this in the future.
Revanth Reddy and Bhatti Vikramarka thanked Tej for raising the issue and said child safety is of the utmost priority for the Telangana government and promised appropriate action.
