Thiruvananthapuram, May 22 (IANS): The Kerala Police's special wing probing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on Monday said they have arrested eight persons and registered 133 cases after 449 suspect locations were identified and raided across the state.

The special probe team probing these cases have named it 'P-Hunt' and the raids were conducted on Sunday.

In a statement issued here on Monday night, the Kerala Police said the information collected was passed on to 449 teams under the district police chiefs, having members of cyber cells, technical experts, and women.

"The raids were highly successful and as a part of the operation, the teams were able to seize 212 devices - which include mobile phones, modems, hard disks, memory cards, laptops, computers etc with graphic and illegal videos and pictures of children, and register 133 cases, under Section 67 B of IT Act. The distressing part of the same is that many of the videos/pictures appear to be of local children, ranging in age group of 5 years to 16 years," it said.

"Based on the recovery of the devices with the CSAM material, eight arrests were made and which includes youth working in good professional jobs and most of them are IT savvy, which is the reason why they were using all kinds of encrypted handles to upload and download the material. Some are suspected to be involved in the trafficking of children also, as there are many chats to this effect in their devices. The details of rest of the people involved in circulating these images and videos are being further collected. Strong action will be taken against all the individuals involved in this racket, continuing our policy of zero tolerance in these matters," the statement added.

According to the current law, viewing, distributing or storing of any child pornographic content is a criminal offence that can result in, up to five years imprisonment and up to Rs 10 lakh fine.