BENGALURU: It’s been a month since the eight Cyber Crime, Economic Offences & Narcotics (CEN) police stations in the city were inaugurated by Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa. Though a notification had come out on its launch, a government order is yet to be issued outlining the stations’ functions. Without the order, the stations are now running like any law and order station in the city. However, there are a few divisions which have a 2-4 member team looking after such cases.
“The order is expected to come any time soon. Until then, the cases are treated on top priority as any other case and under their jurisdictional court,” said Kuldeep Kumar Jain, deputy commissioner of police (crime 1). He added that the CEN stations have relieved the city’s former lone Cyber Crime Police Station (CCPS) of its workload.
The eight stations are expected to have an inspector, two sub-inspectors, two techies who are outsourced and 25 staff officers. During the formation of CEN stations, all eight DCPs had shortlisted 100 officers in the city who are interested and have the knack to crack cyber cases. There are three levels of training that the officers need to undergo at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) by Infosys.
“We have also just been informed that a two-day workshop will be conducted probably by February by the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at CID for our officers. “The officers will be trained in a phased manner,” said DCP (Central) Chetan Singh Rathore.Currently, the CID, in alliance with Infosys Foundation, is holding a two-month-long mentorship programme for nine final year students of professional colleges.
“Cybercrime is going to pose the biggest challenge to the police. While we have enough number of specialised CEN police stations in the state, we don’t have the required number of trained police officers to deal with mounting cases of cyber crime. These include economic offences, hacking, data theft, stalking, morphing and impersonation. The objective behind the mentorship programme is to train students, who have the drive and aptitude, on cyber security,” Praveen Sood, Director General of Police, CID, had earlier told TNIE.