Cyber crime arrests in Bengal jump 35%

Dwaipayan Ghosh | TNN | Sep 12, 2016,Kolkata: Dipen Karmakar (24) calls himself an East Bengal fan but when he allegedly posted hate messages against arch rival Mohun Bagan, the Kolkata police cyber cell arrested him from his Naihati residence. He didn't realize he was inciting hatred that attracts strict action under cyber law.

Avinash Gupta, a top BPO executive, had developed friendship with a woman residing in Park Street area two years ago. She too was an IT employee. A year ago, the woman married another man and moved to the US. Enraged, Gupta mailed intimate pictures with the woman to her husband. The woman then flew down to Kolkata and lodged a FIR, and he was arrested.

Shahnawaz Ahmed, a driver from Howrah, used to stalk and harass women on WhatsApp. Police said the accused had downloaded an app with which he would download the display photo of his victim, morph it and send it with vulgar messages.

Three different men from different layers of society, yet united by one crime. The city's brush with cyber crime is real. These are not one-off incidents, but a pattern that is becoming as dangerous as traditional crimes like snatching and theft.

A look at the latest NCRB figures drives home the point. The state has seen a 35% jump in arrests with a total of 355. In Kolkata itself, cyber crimes now constitute more than 5% of all crimes reported to the police. In Bengal, it is slightly less at 3.4%.

A look at the profiles of the accused show how cyber criminals have transcended social classes. Among those arrested last year, merely seven were relatives or neighbours.Twelve were termed "sexual freaks" and there were 16 IT professionals in the list of those arrested.

The women in the city were most likely to be victims of cyber bullies. Last year, 42 people were arrested for insulting women in the cyber world while 21 were held for social exploitation. Eighty-five arrests were concerned with financial frauds and 13 of those arrested said they were business rivals.

Of particular interest for Kolkata Police was the jump in arrests Jharkhand and Bihar for committing cyber frauds. Almost 80% of financial cyber frauds in the city is attributed to men from these two states. Jharkhand, for example, saw a jump of 93.5% in arrests -from 93 to 180 in 2015.