Post News Network
Cuttack, July 2: At a time when rising cyber crimes have become a cause for concern, the police, with the only cyber police station here, fight a tough battle to tackle the menace.
The cyber police station functioning under the state Crime Branch (CB) here was established in October, 2006. However, the police station has failed to perform satisfactorily due largely to lack of proper infrastructure, cutting edge technology and manpower.
Justice eludes victims of cyber crimes due to dearth of trained and specialised manpower to deal with the cases. This apart, the officers at general police stations also lack the ability to deal with cyber crimes.
Cyber crime has raised its ugly heads everywhere in the state. While nude pictures and videos of girls go viral in social media and Internet sites, some anti-social elements send obscene MMSes which spread like wildfire. Anti-social elements are hacking the websites, e-mails and social media accounts as the first step to commit the crime. Some create fake websites to dupe others as it happened in OJEE fake website case last year. However, the accused was nabbed recently.
There are examples of students, even from schools, falling prey to the crime and many losing their lives.
In 2008, a youth had brought his girlfriend to his Kalyannagar residence, raped her there and recorded the incident to make it a CD. The CD was circulated across the state. The girl, out of shame, committed suicide. During investigation, police found that the CD was circulating in other states too.
Gurupada Nanda, a victim of cyber crime, said, “I got an SMS September 10, 2014 that `4,300 was withdrawn from his bank account. I conducted a query to find that `4.39 lakh was withdrawn from my account in several phases. I lodged a complaint with cyber crime PS and the culprit was nabbed. However, I am yet to get back my money.”
Another complainant Arun Kumar Jena said, he had lost his daughter and has been waiting for justice. All the accused in the heinous crime are yet to be nabbed, he added.
According to sources at CB, 10 complaints were lodged with the cyber cell in 2010 while it rose to 16 in 2013. The number further increased to 19 in 2014 and 10 cases were so far registered with the PS this year, added the sources.
Former inspector general (IG) of police Surendra Nath Swain said, “Police fail to nab the criminals who are from outside the state primarily because of lack of modern technology. In some cases, computers and other electronic gadgets are seized but they are not properly analysed as to how the crime had occurred. A high-tech investigation is necessary to go deeper into the crimes.”
Director general of police Sanjeev Marik said, “The state government has planned another cyber police station and a proposal has already been given to the government. The senior police officials are advised to undertake investigation in a scientific way.”
Crime branch ADG Bijay Kumar Sharma said there was lack of infrastructure in the state in comparison with other states. The state lacks a laboratory for instant test of the hardware and software seized in connection with several crimes.
The government has given its green signal to establish another cyber crime PS and a forensic cyber cell in Bhubaneswar, he said adding the officials would be trained accordingly.
The ADG further said the police send SMSes to people to help them aware about the cyber crime.