Head of Indian auction website arrested over sex video

NEW DELHI - The head of a popular Indian online auction site, owned by United States giant eBay Inc, was arrested for the sale of a video showing a schoolgirl and boy involved in oral sex on the portal, police said on Saturday.

Avnish Bajaj, country manager of Baazee (link below), was arrested in the capital on Friday after he was called in for questioning from Baazee's office in Bombay, India's financial hub.

"He was arrested for allowing the sale of the video. He has been charged under the Indian Information Technology Act which prohibits transmission and sale of obscene data electronically," a police spokesman said.

If convicted, Bajaj, a US citizen, could be jailed for up to five years or be fined 100,000 rupees ($NZ3300) or both.

Earlier this week, Delhi police arrested a student at a top engineering college in eastern India for selling the video on Baazee. Newspapers have said about 7-8 people had bought copies of the video using the portal.

A Baazee spokeswoman said the company was "shocked and outraged" over Bajaj's arrest.

"We have been working closely with and fully cooperating with Delhi police since they contacted us on Thursday," spokeswoman Deepa Thomas said in a statement.

"In this case, a seller put up a prohibited item which contravenes our user agreement. We took the specific item off the site as soon as we were notified," she said.

"It is distressing and unacceptable that the police have chosen to misdirect their energies towards ... Bajaj and not to the thousands of small sellers in Delhi and other places where these and other clips are being sold," she said.

Public transmission and sale of pornography is a crime in tradition-bound India but possession of porn and viewing it in private is not.

However, pornographic videos are easily available in most Indian cities and are known to sell for a little more than a dollar.

Police in Delhi have launched a crackdown against this illegal business and seized hundreds of copies of the video.

The 2.37 minute clip in this case shows a girl from a prestigious Delhi school performing oral sex on a classmate who filmed the act using a camera on his mobile phone, police said.

The video was circulated among classmates and made its way to Web sites and video discs last month.

- REUTERS