Kerala cops arrest 28 persons, including techies, in special drive against sharing of paedophile content

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, police said.

Cyber Dome 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.

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.