Indian police took a 15-year-old boy into custody for participating in a group chat on Instagram that shared pictures of underage girls and made obscene comments about them.
The "Bois Locker Room" group is believed to include young schoolchildren in the capital, Delhi.
Group chat screens have been widely shared on social media.
The incident caused outrage in Delhi, which is already seen as one of India's most dangerous cities for women.
The rape and murder of a medical student in the city in 2012 led to a global protest and the passage of stricter laws against rape and sexual assault.
However, there has been little indication that the situation has improved since then.
How did the group go public?
Several Instagram users who had been informed of its existence began posting posts about the group and calling members for their behavior.
It turned out that members were sharing images of their classmates and other underage girls without their knowledge or consent, along with crude comments ranging from body shaming to jokes about sexual assault and rape.
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The screenshots have started to be widely shared on WhatsApp, Twitter and other social media platforms.
But Shubham Singh, a cyber expert who works closely with law enforcement and was one of the first people to begin investigating the group, warned that many of these screenshots appear to have changed.
He added that there seemed to be a mix of images from this group and some similar groups that exist on other social media platforms like Snapchat.
He said he started searching the group after some Instagram users got in touch with him and sent him screenshots.
"I tried to investigate correctly, but nobody came forward to file a complaint. So we tried to find out who was behind the group. They had deleted their Instagram accounts but through the screenshots and some tools, I was able to track them down, "he said.
Mr. Singh then passed the information on to the police, which led to the custody of a teenager.
What else has happened?
The Delhi Women's Commission (DCW) has asked for an investigation into the group.
He issued a directive to the Delhi police to file a case against the perpetrators and present a report detailing exactly what action had been taken so far.
Police say they started investigations after learning about the matter, but told local media that a school also filed a criminal complaint for the same case.
They will likely take several members of the group into custody soon, they added.
In the meantime, DCW has also sent an alert to Instagram, asking for the details and IP addresses of all members of the group and asking the social media site to specify exactly what actions it has taken to deal with the situation.
So far Instagram has not commented on the problem.
But Pawan Duggal, president of the International Commission of Cyber Security Law, says the social media company is responsible.
"Instagram can't say it doesn't know what was going on. They have to voluntarily delete that content. The police can follow them if they fail," he told the BBC, adding that this group was the result of "soft" India towards intermediaries like social. network.
What are the causes of this behavior?
Mr Duggal says his organization has noticed a "huge increase" in the number of children visiting pornography and other "dark web" sites during the blockade imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
"In the past 40 days of the blockade, there have been huge sociological and psychological changes in society with children who are indoors and do not share their online activities with their parents," he said.
He added that while they lacked scientific data, the commission had observed an increase in this trend - visits to pornography sites and sexual fantasy groups - during the blockade.
However, the senior psychologist, dr. Roma Kumar said that such groups existed even before the blockade, but said that the unusual situation could make them more widespread.
Duggal said that the authorities had to send a strong message and that the law had to "offer a very strong hand" against group members to discourage such behavior from happening again.
There has already been a lot of outrage and abuse towards the group members, with many people publicly asking for them to be arrested.
Members' names and Instagram handles have been made public on social media platforms.
However, dr. Kumar told the BBC that chasing group members in public on the Internet was counterproductive and would not solve the long-term problem.
"The goal is not to harm them. The goal is to get them out of this type of behavior," he said, adding that these chats were typical of the high-risk type of behavior in which children of this age indulged. .
"The problem is also that with the Internet, children are much more exposed to this type of content and think it is desirable behavior. The only thing that can help is prolonged counseling so they can see what they have done. wrong, "she said.
"Following them will only make them more angry and defensive and will not solve the problem. We want these guys to reform and become better members of society."
Reporting by Andrew Clarance and Ayeshea Perera
