Cuttack, April 18: A 31-year-old youth was arrested from Mangalabag here today on charges of uploading and circulating morphed and obscene photographs of school and mass education minister Rabi Narayan Nanda on the Internet.

The accused, Siddharth Shankar Pati, hails from Jeypore, Koraput district. He holds a diploma in electrical engineering, but was unemployed.

He has been booked under sections 465 (forgery), 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 500 (defamation), 294 (obscene acts and songs) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66-A, 67, 67 A of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008.

Additional director-general of crime branch B.K. Sharma said Pati wanted to take revenge against a Koraput-based astrologer and had therefore posted morphed and obscene pictures of the man’s daughter along with the minister in the same frame on five to six pornographic websites.

“He wanted to defame the astrologer because he felt the man was giving false advice to people, including his father,” said Sharma.

Pati did not have any apparent rivalry with the minister. He simply posted Nanda’s picture to draw more attention to the obscene pictures.

Nanda represents Jeypore constituency and is considered an important leader in the area. He had lodged a complaint with the cyber crime section of the police in this connection on February 22.

Based on the complaint, a special team was formed to track the culprit. The cops said that after posting the pictures online, Pati formatted his computer and also destroyed the SIM card of his phone to wipe out evidence.

However, the police, who managed to trace him after more than a month of the crime, did not reveal details about how he was caught.

This evening, Pati was produced in the court of the sub-divisional judicial magistrate in Bhubaneswar.

In September last year, cops had arrested an ex-army man, Jayanta Das, for allegedly posting personal details of a woman on a porn website.