HYDERABAD: Cyberabad Commissioner of Police (CP) Avinash Mohanty on Monday announced that the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Cyberabad Police Commissionerate will start registering FIRs directly and function like a police station soon.
The EOW is a specialised wing, which currently takes on cases only based on endorsement or referral by the CP. However, Mohanty told TNIE that he wrote a letter requesting a specific court be assigned for the EOW so that it could function like a regular police station. Notably, while assuming charge as the CP, Mohanty had mentioned that curtailing economic offences such as financial and land scam issues was one of his priorities.
Speaking to TNIE, Cyberabad EOW’s DCP K Prasad explained that much like how the cyber crime wing got its own police station, the EOW will soon work like a separate entity. “It would be the first EOW police station in Telangana,” Prasad revealed.
The DCP elaborated that right now, the EOW can only investigate cases that are being directed to the wing from other police stations. “Cases of cheating, financial fraud or land scam get registered in local police stations. Then the zone’s DCP recommends a particular case to the CP and he transfers the case to us,” the official said. “Else, the CP himself allocates certain cases to the wing based on importance,” he added.
Once the EOW gets a police station of its own, the officials can directly register cases, file FIRs and carry out investigations. “However when that happens, there needs to be a court that will specifically hear the cases of economic offences. The CP has written a letter in this regard. Once we receive an order from the district court, we will start working from the police station,” the DCP said.
While the police await the order from the court, they explain that they are yet to decide on limits to the cases that can be filed in the EOW police station. This would be similar to how there are specifications that victims of cybercrime who have lost more than Rs 50,000 can file their complaints directly at the cybercrime police station. Further clearer details regarding the EOW police station will be revealed in the coming days.