Superintendent of Police Ch. Venkata Appala Naidu on Monday launched the Cyber Crimes Cell at the new District Police Office here, in order to effectively tackle various forms of online frauds.
The cyber cell was started with staff trained in the specified areas such as OTP frauds, online shopping frauds and crimes related to posts in social media, job frauds, lucky draws and lottery frauds.
The cell would function under the direct supervision of the Additional SP, with circle and sub-inspectors and field staff.
Speaking to the media, the SP said that the cell was initiated in view of the growing number of crimes coming under the category. “In spite of the best efforts by the police and massive awareness programmes, gullible public continue to become targets of cyber crimes,” he said.
The main objective of the cyber cell was to categorise the criminal activities falling under the wing, and to expedite the interrogation and bring the culprits to book. He observed that in the absence of any separate mechanism to tackle the cyber crimes, the accused were taking advantage of the same and devising means to escape punishment.
“All the police officers at mandal level are instructed to spread awareness about the cyber cell and direct the victims to the officials handling the wing,” Mr. Appala Naidu said.
Security checks
Meanwhile, the district police initiated searches at bus stations, railway stations, hotels, marriage halls, lodges and cinema theatres on Sunday and Monday to detect the presence of suspicious persons, criminal gangs and extremist elements.
The checks were conducted at Madanapalle, Chittoor, Palamaner, Puttur and Sri City police sub-divisions. The SP said that the web applications Facetager and Finger prints identification system (FINS) were being used by the police personnel during the searches to immediately detect suspicious elements and habitual offenders.
