TGCSB arrests 34 cyber crooks in State-wide operation, rescues four-year-old girl

The Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) on Thursday (January 8) carried out a one-day intra-State special operation across Telangana, arresting 34 cyber crooks, including 24 repeat offenders, involved in child sexual exploitative and abusive material (CSEAM) cases and 10 mule bank account holders linked to cyber frauds.

The operation was conducted by 18 teams across Hyderabad and other districts. Officials said the CSEAM offenders were involved in uploading, storing and circulating sexually explicit content of minors and were linked to 91 cyber tipline complaints. As part of the crackdown, 24 FIRs were registered under the Information Technology Act and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act at cyber crime police stations across the State.

The accused, aged between 18 and 48 years, largely belonged to working and middle-class backgrounds and included a State government employee. Police said a majority of the material involved girl children, many of them foreign victims, aged between four and 14 years.

In one case, the TGCSB’s Child Protection Unit identified content suspected to have been locally produced and rescued a four-year-old girl after arresting the accused. Police said the child’s parents were unaware of the abuse until the investigation led to the offender, identified as 24-year-old Kandhada Srikanth, a resident of Rajendranagar and working as a security guard, who has been remanded to judicial custody.

In another instance, a junior assistant working in the Irrigation department was arrested in Nizamabad for repeated involvement in three online CSEAM offences.

As part of the same operation, 10 mule bank account holders were arrested for facilitating cyber frauds. Investigations have revealed links to 37 cases across the country, including 14 in Telangana, involving transactions worth about ₹26 crore.

According to TGCSB, after the establishment of the CPU in February 2025, the processing of online CSEAM complaints has seen a sharp increase. The number of cyber tipline reports processed rose from 21,817 in 2023 and 28,583 in 2024 to over 1.20 lakh in 2025, leading to a significant jump in enforcement. FIRs registered increased from 11 in 2023 and 26 in 2024 to 866 in 2025, while arrests rose from five and 31 in the previous two years to 421 in 2025. The unit has also substantially stepped up coordination with other States, forwarding more than 6,000 tipline reports in 2025.

Officials said the intensified action forms part of a broader enforcement push by the TGCSB. Since September 2024, the bureau has conducted three inter-State and four intra-State special operations, including four major drives in 2025 alone. During 2025, about 1,689 cybercrime accused were arrested across Telangana, of whom nearly 277 were apprehended by the TGCSB through its seven cyber crime police stations, with 167 arrests made during special operations and the rest during routine enforcement.

The bureau has urged citizens to report suspicious online activity involving minors through the cybercrime portal or by dialling the national helpline 1930, and warned against circulating sensitive content, even unintentionally.