THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As part of its zero-tolerance approach towards child pornography, the state police on Saturday arrested 12 persons and registered 20 cases. The crackdown is part of Operation P-Hunt and this is the third time that the police had come out against child pornography and crimes against children in the state.
The first such operation was conducted in April which resulted in the registration of 21 cases and arrests of 14 persons. It was followed by a crackdown in June in which 12 persons were arrested and 16 cases were registered. According to police, the investigation has found that a host of child pornographic groups were operating in social media applications such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and particularly Telegram, as it had strong encryption and offers greater anonymity.
"As a part of the operation, raids were conducted at various places and in 21 places, the teams could seize the devices- mobile phones, hard disks, memory cards, laptops, computers, and others with videos and pictures of children. Also, we had zeroed in a slew of such groups and 126 individuals who were engaged in the large-scale distribution of child porn," said an officer of the Cyber Cell.