BENGALURU: In view of the rise in online and debit/credit card frauds, the state police department has decided to have exclusive cyber crime police stations in all the six commissionerates.
The Home Ministry has sanctioned 41 new police stations in the state and the six commissionerates will get two additional police stations each. The department has decided to dedicate one police station at each of the six commissionerates to deal with cyber crime cases.
DG & IGP Roopak Kumar Dutta told Express,”The idea of having exclusive cyber crime police stations struck due to the increasing cyber crimes in the state. This is a huge step. Cases related to cyber crime can now be transferred to these exclusive cyber crime police stations.”
“Hubballi-Dharwad, Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Belagavi and the newly announced Kalaburgi commissionerates will get the exclusive cyber crime police stations,” Dutta added.
Each police station will have an average of 41 police officials, including one inspector, two police sub-inspectors and four women police personnel.
Police sources said since there is already a shortage of staff, the department has planned to deploy the officials from excise and lottery special wing. There are 3,529 police personnel in the wing.
Lack of special laboratories, however, is likely to affect investigation in cyber crime case. The state has just one cyber laboratory, which is not sufficient.
“New cyber crime police stations will help to register the cases but we need more special laboratories, training and equipment to check the crimes committed via internet. Without improved facilities, investigation cannot be done efficiently. At present, the detection percentage of cyber crime is less than 15 per cent in the state. We need better coordination with other states’ police to nab the criminals, whose location may be anywhere across the globe,” said a cyber police office.
Following demonetisation, the Union government has also been encouraging cashless transactions. Since many people are new to it, cyber criminals might be on the prowl, police fear.