Mumbai:
After watching a porn film, a 22-year-old man lured a 5-year-old child with chocolates and brutally raped her. This alleged shocking confession of the Delhi rapist raises an uncomfortable question - Is easy accessibility to porn responsible for the rise in sexual crimes in India?
Junior Minister of Information Technology and Communications Milind Deora says, "We cannot ban such content in a jerk, it's important to consult people in law and order. It's important to consult psychologists or social scientists and take their views on such issues."
In India, while access to pornographic material privately is legal, its distribution or production is illegal. The Bombay court had recently barred direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting of non-'U' programmes. The net result is that viewers cannot watch adult movies on television.
Savita Bhabhi, which earned the recognition as India's first porn star character, was introduced in March 2008, but was pulled out later.
However, trends in India reveal that the number of times the word 'porn' was googled increased over 5 times. In fact across the world, Delhi tops this list.
A recent survey by IMRB reveals more shocking details - One of every five mobile users in India wants adult content on his 3G-enabled phone. Pornography web sites rank among the most popular in India.
In February, three Karnataka ministers were forced to resign after they were caught watching porn on a mobile phone in the precincts of the Legislative Assembly.
Experts say there is still no scientific study that establishes pornography and sex crimes are interlinked. Psychiatrist Harish Shetty told NDTV, "One cannot connect rape with porn; otherwise we would be seeing rapes on every street. Rape is one of the symptoms of social chaos. People believe nobody gets caught or punished".
However, advocate Vijay Panjwani, who recently moved the Supreme Court demanding a ban on porn and even watching it be made punishable, says, "Child pornography, which is available so easily on the websites and is free of cost should be blocked. It can easily be blocked by the Central Government."
The debate is highly polarized but an industry that generates billions of revenue and over 200 crore pornographic web pages worldwide, the lingering question is that how can one tame this internet monster?