Police on Wednesday launched a nation-wide crackdown on child pornography as part of a government drive to root out sex-related crimes in the wake of brutal sexual offenses against children.

The move comes after a 10-year-old girl was killed by a convicted sex offender who allegedly owned almost 70 items of child pornography, the police said. Police suspect the girl was also raped.

“We will strengthen monitoring of activities related to child pornography, judging that watching pornography featuring minors can lead to horrendous sex crimes,” a police officer at the National Police Agency (NPA) said.

Not only child pornography distributors and producers but also those who download such items from Internet Web sites will be punished with fines up to 20 million won ($ 17,750), the NPA said.

Meanwhile, operators of Web sites and file sharing programs will be subject to the clampdown if they do not remove or block obscene materials, the NPA added. (Yonhap News)