Bhubaneswar, March 27: The crime branch today took over the case in which photographs of some students of Rama Devi Women's University had been shared on a Facebook page with a sexually demeaning caption.

The step was taken after chief minister Naveen Patnaik had ordered a crime branch probe into the incident. The students of the university and two other women's colleges in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar had met the chief minister at his office in the Assembly and demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.

"The incident has defamed several students of the prestigious university. Now, most of the girls are under trauma as the photographs were shared without their consent. Though we had lodged a police case two days ago, the cops are yet to nab the accused. So, we decided to meet the chief minister and demand a high-level investigation into it," said a varsity student.

A Facebook page named Aarohi Creations had allegedly posted the pictures of around 60 students of the university with the sexually expletive caption on Friday. The incident came into light on March 24 after a few students had been informed about the post by their friends.

When they came to know about it, the victims lodged a complaint at Saheed Nagar police station on March 25. The incident has drawn criticism, and several organisations have staged demonstrations demanding arrest of the accused.

The police, who were earlier probing the matter, conducted several raids to nab Sujit Sahoo, who had allegedly created the page, but failed to trace him. The police said the students had told them that Sahoo, a native of Angul, used to work as a social worker in the city for the past few years. "We have been trying to nab him to ascertain his antecedents," said a police official.

"Preliminary investigations revealed that Sahoo had conducted a contest in the name of 'Best Display Picture' among the varsity students a few weeks ago. We suspect that Sahoo kept a database of photographs of the students, who had taken part in the contest, and later shared it on the page," said a crime branch official.

But, it has now become difficult for crime branch officials to access the page after it was blocked on March 25 following complaints from some of the victims. "As the page is blocked, it would be a difficult task to trace the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the page. We will write to the law enforcement response team of the Facebook to get details of the blocked page," he said.

On this, Javed Anwar, a cyber expert, said: "As the page has already been removed by the Facebook the IP address can only be provided by the Facebook itself."

The crime branch has registered two cases in this connection and formed an eight-member Special Investigation Team to probe the matter.

"While the first case was registered on the basis of a complaint filed by one of the victims, the other one was lodged following complaints by a group of victims. One woman inspector has also been made part of the probe team," said an official.

The varsity authorities, however, said they did not have any role to play in the incident as the crime was committed in cyber space and not on the campus.

The crime branch today began its probe after taking relevant documents from Saheed Nagar police station.