In 150-odd cases booked so far by the Cyber Crime Cell in Visakhapatanam, about 54 cases pertain to women, who have been the victims.
Recently, a woman, who completed her post-graduation, was duped by a person to the tune of ₹ 46 lakh. The person claimed to be a citizen of UK cheated her after giving a job offer in Europe.
Women have been easy targets, be it lottery scam, job frauds, phishing, stalking or for that matter sending derogatory emails or being subjected to posting obscene through various social media sites.
In most of the cases, the criminals are of the idea that women are shy and will not lodge a complaint. And it has been so. In many cases women just suffer and do not lodge complaint with the police.
However, things are now changing and they are coming forward. “But what is needed is more awareness so that we receive more complaints. This will be a kind of deterrent for criminals,” said Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) S. Varadaraju.
Last year, a retired employee of Naval Dockyard, gave away almost all her retirement benefit to the tune of about 25 lakh to an online lottery fraud.
“If she would have registered the complaint at least after the first two instalments of payments, we would have stopped her from paying further,” said former Inspector of Cyber Crime Cell K. Satyanarayana Rao.
Justice T. Rajini, senior Judge, at a seminar sometime ago had said she had almost became a victim of Nigerian 419 cyber lottery scam.
She said a lot needs to be done to create awareness on cyber crime, especially among women, as the crime is on the rise, it is new type of crime and women are the targeted lot. Apart from women in general, cyber crime is a new concept and the enforcement agencies and the legal fraternity should also be upgraded, she said.
Sumit Bhattacharjee
