In lawless Uttar Pradesh, rape videos openly sold in urban markets

Lucknow: The horrific Bulandshahr gangrape may have shocked the conscience of many, but rape videos are still being openly sold in shops across cities in Uttar Pradesh.

According to a report in Times of India, thousands of rape videos are being sold in UP shops daily, right under the nose of the police and administration.

Depending on the "exclusivity" of the clips, which are 30 seconds to even 5 minutes long, they are priced anywhere from Rs 50 to 150. While these are sold under the counter and only through a reference, the trade is blossoming and unchecked.

Individuals or organised gangs usually download these videos from Twitter, Tumbler or Facebook accounts and sell them. Sometimes, however, culprits involved in rapes or assaults take videos of the crime and post them online.

Dealers download these videos directly into the customer's smartphone or put them in pen drive for as less as Rs 150.

Shopkeepers seem quite nonchalant about selling these videos. The report quotes one shopkeeper telling a teenager that he might even know the girl in the ‘latest, hottest video’.

A senior cop is quoted as saying that rapists invariably also record the crime on their phones. It is then used as a blackmailing tool to either bully the victim, or to rape them again. Videos of girls pleading the rapists not to film them have also found their way into shops.

In the past, Agra police have conducted raids at Tajganj and Sadar areas and arrested one person for selling explicit videos and pirated films, said the report. The police plan to continue these operations.

Agra is a hotbed of such videos, which are easily available in markets at Belanganj, Balkeshwar, Kamla Nagar and a few other areas of the city.

The situation is similar in Meerut and Bareilly, where last week a 21 year-old committed suicide when she found that after posting her videos online, the rapist even sold her nude pictures to residents at Rs 3 per print.