Police in the districts of Telangana struggling to probe cyber crime will soon get a helping hand from the sleuths of the Crime Investigation Department.
From analysing the modus operandi to tracking offenders committing crimes online, CID officials will train teams of police personnel from each district of Telangana in a phased manner on how to tackle this new and fast spreading crime.
“The long-term goal is to have dedicated cyber crime police stations in each district. Before taking that big step, we decided to impart training to some policemen so that they can act as master trainers,” a CID officer, unwilling to be quoted, told this correspondent.
Cyber crimes nearly doubled in 2014 in Telangana, and they are all set to spurt in the coming years. From 334 cyber crime cases in 2013, they rose to 618 till the end of November in 2014.
With many unsuspecting netizens relying on the Internet to make online transactions and depending on e-commerce, offenders are tricking them into parting with their money.
While Hyderabad and Cyberabad Commissionerates, along with the CID, are able to render justice to complainants to some extent, having started separate cyber crime police stations years ago, that is not the case in the districts.
Police personnel in the districts are not familiar with the multiple modus operandi adopted by cyber criminals to take people for a ride.
They don’t have the technical expertise and the wherewithal like crucial software to trace the accused –some of whom operate from abroad.
Even in other crimes like abductions or extortions when the mobile phone emerges the only possible lead to nab the offenders, investigators from districts are at a disadvantage to analyse the call data record or narrow down on the location of the criminals.
“We do have software to analyse phone calls and retrieve data but only a select few policemen are well-versed with it. Naturally, sometimes we’re not able to react swiftly,” admitted a police officer from the districts.
Meanwhile, the CID top brass had also planned to bring in changes on how to tackle white-collar offences, especially economic offences.
Proposals were mooted to start teams for gathering economic intelligence and keep a tab on companies or groups trying to dupe people with unrealistic investment or business plans.
