A scandal is unfolding in Kostanay over a Telegram channel that publishes photos of children: parents of schoolchildren have turned to the police, alleging bullying and demands for money to remove posts, reports infohub.kz.

According to Channel 31, Dana Penkovskikh, the mother of a schoolgirl, was shocked when she saw a photo of her daughter on the Telegram public page "Shame on Kostanay." The girl herself told the woman about the post.

According to Dana, this is far from the first such case in the city. Parents of children who have faced bullying decided to go to the police.

"This is not the first case in our city; there have already been similar groups, they get blocked, but the chat administrators are not sought. We would like them to be found and punished; this is not a joke, the children are in a bad state! After the video was published, I receive hundreds of messages from women all over Kazakhstan," says Dana Penkovskikh, the mother of the schoolgirl.

Moreover, to remove these posts, the public page's administrators allegedly asked for 10,000 tenge — the same amount, she says, was demanded for adding adults to the chat.

Police said they are conducting an investigation into the matter.

"Officers are establishing all the circumstances of the incident, collecting and recording the necessary materials, and also identifying the persons involved in posting the said materials. After that, their actions will be given a legal assessment," emphasized Kairat Daurenbekov, head of the public security department of the Kostanay city police department.

Experts say that finding such public page administrators is difficult, but if desired, it can be done. Perhaps the criminals are not even in the country but operate from abroad.

"There is open code where anyone can create something, come up with bots, etc. Overall it's cool, but it's important to understand: where it's cool, it's not safe. We won't get rid of this until a proper conversation is held with children," says Abylai Isin, author of the CYBERBALA project.

However, parents believe that if several organizers are found and publicly punished, there will be fewer such groups. Moreover, by sending money to a card, they leave a digital trail that can lead at least to intermediaries.