The supreme court on Friday has ordered the CBI to investigate the gang-rape videos that went viral on social media including the WhatsApp. The apex court has described the videos as scary and shocking and asked the CBI to register a case and identify the rapists.

Also read: Woman rights activist Sunitha Krishnan launched ‘Shame the rapist campaign’ in Hyderabad

The court took suo moto notice of the appeal of anti-trafficking activist Sunitha Krishnan's complaint.

The court said that the issue was extremely serious and needs attention. It also remarked that the men in the video might be from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and were "Bengali-speaking." The two states, along with Bengal and Odisha, have been asked to hunt for the rapists in the video.

It may be noted that, in an attempt to identify and nab the gangrape accused, Krishnan launched ‘Shame the rapist campaign’ in the first week of February.

She shared videos (that were already viral on messaging application) that feature men sexually assaulting a woman (the videos were edited concealing the identity of the woman and only showing the faces of the rapists) and made an appeal to identify the men.

Two separate videos feature six men shamelessly laughing and posing for the camera as they take turns to gangrape a woman, ignoring her appeals.

The videos which were about six months old were believed to be shot by the men who were assaulting the girl. The videos were being circulated on popular messaging service WhatsApp from where Krishnan discovered them and devised to catch the rapists.

Krishnan, who is herself a rape survivor, heads an NGO Prajwala, an anti-trafficking organisation based out of Hyderabad.