THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Twelve people have been arrested and cases registered against 20 people in Kerala for spreading obscene videos and pictures of children through social media, police said here on Sunday

The operation named P-Hunt included raids conducted by the Counter Child Sexual Exploitation Unit of Kerala Police at 21 places in the state

The CCSE works in coordination with the INTERPOL- Crimes against Children Unit and the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children

The raids started at 6 AM on October 12 and ended at around 1 AM on Sunday, a senior police official told PTI

Laptops, mobile phones modems, hard disks, memory cards, computers and other electronic equipment were seized from those arrested, police said in a release

The WhatsApp groups which were sharing child porn content were also identified, it said

Police said that they were closely monitoring various groups in WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook

"The simultaneous state-wide raids were organised under the direct supervision of District Police Chiefs, assisted by shadow teams and a specially trained cyber team, the official said

This was the third such special drive conducted by police with the help of Interpol, the earlier ones being in April and June this year

Police said that as part of the operation,they identified many such social media groups and also 126 people suspected to be engaged in large-scale distribution of child porn

Viewing, distributing or storing any child pornographic content is a criminal offense that can attract imprisonment up to five years and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh.