Beware of steamy talk in  chatrooms. The US cops are disguising themselves in chat rooms as kids soliciting sex.

A Bangalore techie in the US has been languishing in a US jail for nine months.

The US cops even got a person in Bangalore arrested by seeking CBI help.

Chatting, me?

Seven months ago, 28-year-old Rahul (name changed), who was working with a private firm in Bangalore, met a lady in the chat room. "After some steamy erotic chats the lady told me that she was 12 years old. But the chats continued. Since the person was in the US, I didn't see any harm in chatting," he said.

Rahul was wrong. One day a CBI officer from Chennai landed at his door.

He arrested him and seized his computer.

"I was in police custody for a week. It was then I realised that I had been chatting with an undercover cop. She or he had informed the Interpol who had in turn passed on the information to the CBI. They have accused me of being a maker of child pornography films. I have been booked under the IT Act and the case is going on," he said.

Naveen in US jail

Bangalore techie Naveen S N (27) who was in the US for a project has also been trapped in the same way.

In May a Canadian schoolteacher  was arrested for using an electronic device to solicit sex to a minor 13-year old. 

He was also charged with  distributing child pornography. The minimum punishment in Virginia for distributing child porn is five years imprisonment.

In November 2006, a Texas attorney Bill Conradt chatted with an undercover crew member of a TV show 'To catch a predator.'  The crew member said he was a 13-year old. They called him to the Dateline house which was fixed with cameras. Bill did not go. The police and the show crew members stormed into his house. Bill then shot himself.

Legal speak

Except in Goa, there is no  law against paedophilia in India. A rape case is booked only if there is an intercourse with the child.

'Our family is shattered'

He has been languishing in a jail there for nine months and has not even been able to talk to his family over the phone.

Naveen who was working with HCL was sent on a project to the US in April last year. There he met a person online. After chatting for sometime the chat friend told him that he or she was 12 years old and asked him to meet. In October last year when he went to meet 'her' he was greeted by cops who arrested him.

"My brother was not allowed to contact anyone. His roommates informed us that he had been missing. I then called his office in the US, and they first said they didn't know. Later they told us that he had been arrested," said Naveen's brother Sridhar, a student in Bangalore.

But the family did not get to know anything more than this. "Naveen wrote a letter telling us about what had happened. They have not even allowed him to call us. The US police have pressed charges of assault and attempted rape against him," he said.

No help

Naveen is in Montgomery County Jail. "He wrote to us that the lawyer he has hired is not helping him. There are no friends too to help or visit him. My pleas to the company to help him with a lawyer and have someone visit him were rejected,"  said Sridhar.

"I sought the help of the ministry of external affairs but they too were not forthcoming. We just want my brother to be deported. Let the case go on. We will fight it, but send him back to India," he said.

The bail amount in the US is $ 500,000 which is equivalent to over Rs 2.1 crore. Naveen's father Ningappa has approached the State Human Rights Commission.

Trapped?

Sridhar insists that his brother is innocent. "My brother may have gone to meet the girl with good intentions.

When he got there, there was no girl. So, how can they charge him with rape? It's like saying that he murdered someone when he just went to the place. He has a clean record. My family is shattered," he said.

Foreign nationals acquitted

British nationals Duncan Grant and Alan Waters, accused of paedophilia, were set free from the Nagpur Central Jail yesterday after the Bombay High Court acquitted them of charges last month.

In 2006, they were convicted by a lower court of sexual abuse at the Anchorage Shelter Home in Mumbai run by Grant. NGO Childline Foundation has appealed to the Supreme Court to stay the high court order.