BHOPAL: In the past three years, Bhopal residents filed 8614 cyber crime-related complaints including, but only 316 FIRs were registered by police till August 31 this year. During this period, cybercriminals siphoned off more than Rs 13 crore from people. Taking note of the issue, the cybercrime branch led by SP (South) Sai Krishna S Thota has now taken many initiatives that will soon be replicated in other districts of the state also.
Earlier, cyber-crime complaints were reported to the cybercrime branch as the police stations concerned were reluctant to register FIRs. This aggravated the sufferings of the cyber-crime victims and they kept on running from pillar to post for registration of their complaints. Now the cyber-crime branch has started registering zero FIRs and sending them to police stations concerned, so that the cops do not have any other option but to register the cases.
An analysis done by senior police officers found that there were many constraints which trigger hesitancy in registration of cyber-crime FIRs at police stations in the city. Lack of staff trained in basics of cyber-crime investigation at thana level has led to transfer of complaints to cyber-crime branch due to which the cybercrime branch, as a result the cyber unit got overburdened. There was no monitoring of cyber-crime complaints received at police stations and so there was no pressure on officials to register them. Investigation of cyber-crime required the team to go out of station mostly to other states which took a lot of effort and planning. Investigation officers (IOs) had to spend money out of their pockets in absence of any TA&DA, hence they got discouraged. The complaints were reported with a lag of a day or two due making it difficult to save the transferred amounts. People were more concerned about their money rather than catching criminals and their interest diminished with time.
Multiple stakeholders, including banks, telecom companies, payment gateways, social media companies, online retail companies and others are involved and exchange of data from them was a constraint as coordinating with them was a tough task. Selective registration of cases at cyber-crime branch was another factor in which only those cases which had some active mobile numbers or bank accounts were being registered. The cyber-crime branch was not only short of staff but also lacked proper tools and basic software for investigation. There were only two desktop computers which multiple IOs shared for taking out CDRs and other stuff.
SP Sai Krishna S Thota said that keeping in mind the exponential rise in cyber-crimes in bigger districts like Bhopal need a two-pronged approach: first, a special cyber cell to investigate the complex cyber-crimes, train staff on cyber-tools and investigations, and coordinate with nodal agencies like banks, payment gateways, telecom operators, social media companies and others. and second, local police stations are equipped with wherewithal to solve regular cyber-crimes like OTP frauds, UPI frauds and others.
SP Thota said that to resolve the issues, the investigation capabilities of the cyber-crime branch were fortified by inducting eight new probationer SIs having interest and background in cyber-crime. Trained SIs were sent to selected police stations to enhance their capabilities. Nearly 70 PSIs were distributed to various police stations and cyber-crime complaints pending with cyber-crime branch were transferred to police stations. The rotation of sending trained SIs from cyber-crime branch to police stations and inducting new PSIs for training would continue to improve the cyber-crime investigations at police station level. Similarly, constables were selected through an exam and inducted to the cyber-crime branch for training in cybercrime investigation. They would also be sent to police stations to make a pool of cyber-trained personnel at local level. This has increased the registration of FIRs at police stations. He said that each IO at cyber-crime branch has been given a separate laptop loaded with basic investigation software. The staff at the cybercrime branch are being trained on new frontiers like international call, spoofing, blockchain and others and training of police station staff are being done on common modus operandi of cybercriminals.
