If Bangalore is the IT hub of India, unfortunately it is also the cyber crime capital of the country. So very soon, it will have a central cyber-crime laboratory to increase the conviction rates of these cyber criminals in the state. This will be opened in Bangalore in the next two months. Along with the forensic lab, six new police stations are also set to start operating in the state. The laboratory will help police track down and identify internet protocol (IP) addresses, which makes it easier to nab culprits behind hacking and phishing crimes, and back up prosecution claims with evidence.
“Six new cyber police stations are going to be set up very soon. Bangalore’s going to get it’s second cyber police station. The others will be set up at Mangalore, Mysore, Gulbarga, Belgaum and Davangere,” said Roopa D, superintendent of police, Cyber Crime Police Station.
Meanwhile, officers from the present CID staff from Bangalore will be recruited, and posted at the various range headquarters. The handpicked officers will be given hands-on, practical training related to cyber crime, before they are assigned to each district. The head constables and constables, however, will be recruited by the respective range IGs.
“DIG Soumendu Mukherjee has already commissioned the tenders for the relevant technology to be purchased and set up for each police station,” said the superintendent.
As per the amendment to the IT Act 2000 , the minimum rank of investigation of cyber crimes is police inspector and any jurisdictional police station can register and investigate. “Because of this amendment, a lot of the cases that we used to initially handle has been relegated to the respective area police stations. Thus, the number of cases we handle, has drastically come down. However, because of the IT Act, the number of frivolous crimes being reported has also gone up. Some times a simple as an offensive message, which might not be seem frivolous to the victim, gets reported, and while we should be focusing our resources on hackers and fraudsters, we have to look into these things too,” informed Roopa D.
Cyber crimes stats
It is ironical that the IT capital of India, has the dubious distinction of topping the charts when it comes to cyber crimes as well. The detailed crime statistics for 2012, published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in its report, Crime in India-2012, shows that Bangalore accounts for 24.4 per cent of cyber crimes booked under the IT Act among 53 ‘megacities’ across India. In 2012, 342 cases were booked, which is quite a significant rise from the 117 cases that were booked in 2011. However, the numbers are much smaller when it comes to cyber crimes booked under provisions of the IPC - only seven compared to 72 in Mumbai.
As a state, Karnataka (412) comes third, with Andhra Pradesh (429) coming a close second, and Maharashtra (471) topping the list for the number of cyber crimes booked under the ITAct, in 2012.
While ‘greed/money’ and ‘fraud/illegal gain’ account for most motives listed, a majority of offences recorded come under the hacking category. 323 of the 412 crimes recorded under the IT Act or the Indian Penal Code in Bangalore fall under the two sub-heads of hacking: ‘loss/damage to computer resource’ and ‘hacking’.
With conviction rates, close to being nil, in most of these cases, it is hoped that the new cyber crime lab will help nail these culprits, with the help of its technological prowess.