KUANTAN: Two families have been enduring sleepless nights when pictures of their young daughters had been distrbuted by paedophiles on social media.
The suspect had stolen the girl's images, which were posted by their parents on Facebook, before posting them on a Twitter account along with obscene words.
The suspect is believed to have shared the victims' images with several others on social media, as some of the pictures were edited with pornographic content.
The mother of one of the victims, identified only as Tan, said her 12-year-old daughter was traumatised by the incident.
She said the suspect had been circulating the images since December last year but the family only realised on March 15 when a friend alerted her.
"The friend shared several Twitter postings which contained images of my daughter, sister-in-law, niece and myself. Our pictures were taken from my Facebook page and the suspect had altered the images with lewd content.
"Since my daughter is active in school and attends a lot of programmes, I have been regularly posting her pictures on Facebook but someone is exploiting them.
"The entire family is worried and now, all of us will wear masks each time we leave the house," she said when met at Teruntum assemblyman Sim Chon Siang's service centre here today.
Tan, who was joined by her sister-in-law and her 10-year-old niece from Kemaman, Terengganu, said she believed the suspect knew her family's background as he had included her daughter's age in his postings.
"The person seems to know a lot of information about my family and I was told there are several other victims in Kemaman whose pictures were stolen by the suspect from social media and edited with rude captions.
"The individual had even shared videos of his private parts along with our family pictures in the background. Some of the videos have been viewed more than a million times so I believe he must have been sharing them with other individuals.
"I am not sure why the person is committing such an act and my concern is the safety of the young girls. I have told my daughter not to speak to strangers at school and only wait for my husband or me to fetch her from school," she said.
Another mother, identified as Lee said, her 10-year-old daughter had become emotionally disturbed after learning that her pictures were edited and irresponsibly circulated online.
"She is young and has to endure such an experience. I hope it will not affect her education and activities at school... I am praying for the police to nab the suspect," she said.
Sim said two police reports were lodged at the Chukai police station in Kemaman, Terengganu on March 15 and yesterday.
"The reports were done to ensure the safety of the young children who appear to be the main target. The children have been sexually exploited online and we hope the police and Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission can track down the suspect," he said.