As many as 41 people have been arrested in Kerala for allegedly sharing sexually explicit pictures and videos of children in the 6-15 age group. The accused list includes youths working in good professional jobs, doctors and IT savvy professions, police said on Monday.

The arrests were made during the third round of the Counter Child Sexual Exploitation (CCSE) Unit's operation against child sexual abuse material, code named "P-Hunt_20.3". The raid was conducted at 596 locations across the state on Sunday. The previous raids were held in June and October this year and 88 people were arrested.

392 devices were seized which include mobile phones, tabs, modems, hard disks, memory cards, laptops, computers with graphic and illegal videos and pictures of children. "Based on the recovery of the devices..., 41 arrests were made and this 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," said Additional Director General of police, Manoj Abraham.

Kerala Police CCSE (Countering Child Sexual Exploitation) Team, functioning under Cyberdome, also stated that the gravity of the problem has seen a spike during this lockdown and the subsequent hyper active use of internet by the youngsters. Some of the youth were suspected to be involved in trafficking of children, the police said. A total of 525 cases have been registered and over 428 accused arrested so far in the three raids.

As viewing, distributing or storing of any child sexual abuse content is a criminal offense, the accused will have to face imprisonment up to five years and a fine up to Rs 10 lakh.