Arun M By

Express News Service

KOCHI: A comprehensive probe aided by cutting-edge technology has helped Kerala Police to home in on paedophiles in the state watching and propagating child porn via social sites. The investigators used the log-in details to crack the identity of the accused. Following a tip-off from the Interpol some months ago, Cyberdome came to know about the rampant sharing of obscene photos of children.

Police put the persons frequently visiting child porn sites under surveillance and zeroed in on 84 persons under ‘Operation P-Hunt’. This led to the arrest of 21 persons, according to officers. “The Interpol had alerted us about the presence of those involved in propagating obscene pictures and videos on the Internet. Following this, the Cyberdome constituted an expert team to track the offenders by identifying their IP address and log-in details,” said SP Prakash, the Operations Officer, Cyberdome.

As part of ‘Operation P-Hunt’ raids were carried out at 45 places in 12 districts in the state with the assistance of the High-Tech Cell and Cyber Cells. Following this, laptops, mobile phones, hard discs and USB drives were recovered from 29 locations, according to the officers.

However, the police were reluctant to divulge the technology employed to crackdown on the offenders since the cyber frauds could well sabotage the mechanism.

The perpetrators used to propagate the photographs and videos via Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram. Last year, the team found the admin of around 37 channels on Telegram is a Malayali, operating under the alias ‘MLPM’, and another Telegram channel named Poombatta, were engaged in transmitting child porn videos and images.