Thiruvananthapuram: In a major crackdown on child pornography, Kerala police have arrested as many as 28 people, many of them high profile IT professionals, across the state for allegedly viewing and sharing objectionable content related to children.
A total of 370 cases have been registered under 'Operation P-Hunt 21.1', a special drive to track sharing of paedophile pornographic content, the police said.
The cases that have been registered include a 17 year old boy who has been nabbed for the third time in such a case and there are also IT professionals and those engaged in the business of mobile phones.
Kerala Police Cyberdome nodal officer ADGP Manoj Abraham said searches were carried out at 477 locations in the state simultaneously.
"A 310-member police team, led by district police chiefs, began searches on Sunday morning. A total of 429 devices including laptops, memory cards, mobile phones, hard disks and computers were seized during the raid," he said.
The recovered devices were found to be used to store paedophile pornographic content, he said, adding that many of the arrested were youngsters doing high-profile jobs in the IT sector.
The police team found that pictures of young children in the age group of 5 to 16 years were transferred by those who have been arrested. The pictures were of children living near the accused.
As per the concerned law, viewing, storing or sharing pornographic content related to minors is an offence which may invite an imprisonment up to five years or a fine of Rs 10 lakh, the officer added.
A similar operation was carried out by the Kerala Police in December last year and cases and arrests was recorded at that time also. So far close to 500 people have been nabbed through Operation P-hunt.
