BHUBANESWAR: The Crime Branch (CB) of Odisha Police will soon have seven cyber commandos, trained by various institutions in cyber security under the supervision of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), to probe complex online crimes taking place in the state.
At least 16 officers of the CB had appeared for the screening test but seven were selected for the six-month-long programme organised by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C).
CB sources said four are undergoing training at International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Raipur, two at Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) in Pune and one at Gandhinagar’s Rashtriya Raksha University.
The cyber commandos are expected to be assigned duties as per the expertise they develop during training in digital forensics, incident response and securing the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure.
Amid growing cyber threats, the MHA had earlier issued an advisory to all states over establishment of a special wing of cyber commandos.
The cyber commandos will be significant for Odisha Police as the state has witnessed an exponential rise in cyber crimes in the recent years. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi informed the Assembly on Monday that cyber criminals cheated over Rs 125 crore from the people in the state between 2021 and 2023. He said 6,368 cases were registered and as many as 1,388 people arrested during the period.
In the recently-concluded DG& IG conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too made suggestions and advised the states to robustly combat the growing cyber crimes. “We are hopeful that cyber commandos will enhance our capabilities in diverse aspects of cybersecurity and deal with complex online crimes,” said a senior police officer.
The training of the first batch of cyber commandos will be over by March after which the CB will send the second batch of officers to undertake the programme in various institutions across the country.
The MHA plans to raise 5,000 cyber commandos over the next five years. Currently, 286 police personnel of all the states are undergoing cyber commando training at eight different institutes like National Forensic Sciences University, New Delhi, NFSU, Gandhinagar, Rashtriya Raksha University, DIAT as well as IITs in Kanpur, Madras and Kottayam.
Sources said I4C will conduct the training for the second batch of officers next year and its screening test is likely to be organised in January. “Any rank police personnel having basic knowledge of computer networks and operating systems can appear for the screening test. We received around 111 applications and their names were sent to the Centre,” said a CB officer.