In view of increasing number of cybercrimes over the last one year, all the police stations from the city will soon have exclusive ‘cyber warriors’, a special team to handle cybercrime.
The cyber warriors team will be headed by a Sub-Inspector and staff. This apart, on the lines of women help desks, the police stations will be also equipped with cybercrimes help desk in the next two months.
As part of cyber warriors initiative, a brainchild of Police Commissioner Ch. Srikanth, a Sub-Inspector-level officer and one or two police personnel from every police station were selected and are being given training on various aspects of cybercrime cases being reported, their modus operandi, including how the cyber fraudsters approach, sweet-talk and dupe people before deducting money from their accounts.
Cyber sentinel concept
“Apart from cyber warriors, we are also planning to introduce the cyber sentinel concept. Under this programme, we will train at least one person in each colony or area and train him with the basic skills to handle cybercrime. He will create awareness among the people, as the crimes are fast changing,” said Mr. Srikanth.
Apart from basic knowledge, the personnel are also being trained how to help victims during the initial hours after the cybercrime is committed. This includes technical training to launch immediate communication with the data operators, bank authorities and informing them about the crime to freeze the accounts or to stop the money transfer and also retrieving the call data records. The basic idea is to ensure that the amount would not be transferred to fraudsters.
610 cases
During the year 2022, the city had reported as many as 610 cybercrime cases, as against 316 during the year 2021, which is almost a 93% increase. Cybercrime victims from the city have reportedly lost around whopping ₹16.33 crore after being duped by the fraudsters during the year 2022. However the amount recovered was just around ₹37.55 lakh. During the year 2021, the victims had lost close to ₹9.5 crore.
Help desks
Already, Visakhapatnam has exclusive cybercrime police station with around 30 staff headed by Inspector and two sub-Inspectors. However with the gradual increase in the number of cybercrime cases and the staff leaving to various cities, especially North India, as part of Investigation, the police are introducing the cybercrime help desks in all the police stations. This will also eventually reduce pressure on the cybercrime police station.
Inspector of cyber crime police station K. Bhavani Shankar said that the basic motto is to help the cybercrime victims at the earliest and stop money transfer. Now, they don’t need to approach the cybercrime police station, but can reach out to the nearest police station for immediate help. This apart, a dedicated helpline and website are also available for the citizens, he said.
“As of now, around 70 police personnel, including around 20 sub-inspectors and several ASIs, are undergoing both virtual and offline training. Probably, it would take another two months to launch the cyber warriors,” said Mr. Bhavani Shankar.
