Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said on Monday that cyber crimes had recorded an increase of more than ten fold since the time the first cyber police station started functioning in the State. Most of the complaints were about harassment of girls through mobile phone calls.
The Minister told the media here that number of complaints had gone up from 7000 a year to about 80000 a year. Of these, around 50000 complaints were from girls. Steps would be taken to post qualified personnel to handle cyber crimes.
Mr. Radhakrishnan said that the police were not tapping the phone of any member of the Assembly. “To my knowledge, no directive tap phones of members had been issued.”
He said that the government had issued orders referring investigation of the complaint by Jomon Puthenpurackal against Nandakumar, who was alleged to be an aide of Opposition Leader V. S. Achuthanandan, to the CBI. A CBI enquiry had also been ordered into the award of contract for managing the State data centre.
The Minister said that a two-day international conference on cyber security and policing would be held here on August 3 and 4 in connection with observation of cyber security day. Ministers, members of Assembly and Parliament, higher police officials and technical experts in cyber security management would attend.
Many Web sites were being used for obscene material. The victims were often women and teenagers. Many people were also being swindled by people from distant places, taking advantage of inadequacies in cyber security and lacunae in law. These issues needed to be addressed. The conference, he added, was being organised by the Kerala Police in association with the State Information Technology Mission and information Security Research Association for knowledge sharing.
Asked about the comment of Congress leader V. M. Sudheeran about the ineptness of some Cabinet ministers, Mr. Radhakrishnan said that he generally agreed with the view that performance ought to be increased. However, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had pointed out that he was having the best team, the Minister noted.
