A special unit of the Kerala Police has arrested 8, including IT professionals, for viewing and sharing child porn.
The arrests were part of an ongoing covert operation called 'P-Hunt' run by Kerala Police's CCSE (Countering Child Sexual Exploitation) team.
The police suspect that some of the accused are involved in child trafficking as there were "chats to this effect in their devices".
As part of the operation, 449 locations in the state were raided this Sunday with the help of 'cyber cells, technical experts and women component'.
At least 212 devices were seized and 133 cases were registered under Section 67B of the IT Act (punishment for publishing or transmitting material depicting children in sexually explicit acts, etc., in electronic form).
Mobile phones, modems, hard disks, memory cards, laptops and computers containing "graphic and illegal videos and pictures of children" were seized.
"The distressing part of the same is that many of the videos/pictures appear to be of local children, ranging in the age group of 5 years to 16 years," IG (Cyberdome) P Prakash IPS said in a release.
"A familiar trend is found in porn groups operating over WhatsApp and Telegram and number of such groups have increased drastically during this period.
"Due to the police action through P Hunt drives, the accused now views the video and delete it using specialized software to evade detection.
"They also have started formatting their phone every three days. Use of malwares to activate the webcams of the victim and to steal information of children has also been reported in certain cases," the police release said.
The special unit had conducted a statewide raid earlier this year and made 12 arrests.
The special unit had been constituted in January 2020 with the aim of "preventing online child exploitation and child pornography".
"It should be noted that as per the current law, viewing, distributing or storing of any child pornographic content is a criminal offence can result in, up to 5 years imprisonment and up to Rs 10 lakh fine," IG Prakash said.
