Checking cyber crime... State to set up dedicated cyber police stations

Arunima Ghosh, SNS, Kolkata, 30 May 2014: With a sharp rise in cyber crime cases, the state government has decided to set up dedicated cyber police stations in five police commissionerates to crack cyber crime cases.

At present, the state's only cyber police station functions under the Detective Department branch of Kolkata Police at Lalbazar. "As cyber crime is fast-growing and new trends are emerging every day, there is an urgent need to set up a separate police station to handle cyber crimes exclusively," said an official of the state administration.

The move is aimed at helping people from across the state lodge complaints at the respective police commissionerates instead of travelling to Kolkata for the task.

The cyber police stations will come up at the five police commissionerates of Howrah, Salt Lake, Barrackpore, Asansol and Siliguri. To begin with, no new posts are being created for the proposed five cyber police stations. A section of the existing officers at the commissionerates will be given additional charge of the cyber police stations, said an official, adding issues like providing technical support, manpower and IT training to these officers are yet to be decided.

The decision to come up with five such police stations at once comes in the wake of a sharp increase in cyber crime complaints. According to the National Crime Records Bureau 2012, cyber crime cases have increased by 355.8 per cent in Bengal with Kolkata ranking fourth among the metropolitan cities.

In the past, cyber crime was committed mainly by individuals or small groups. But now organisations are working in tandem with criminal minded technologists to commit cyber crimes.

According to sources at Nabanna, majority of the cyber crime cases lodged with Kolkata Police relate to hacking and damage or loss of computer. But, recently there has been a rise in cases like harassing women on social networking sites and sending objectionable messages or pictures. Complaints of online lottery fraud and phishing are also on the rise. There is a need to set up a dedicated police station to exclusively handle complaints related to cyber crimes, said sources.