Police ill-equipped as cyber crimes double

Arjun Raghunath
The New Indian Express
04 Apr 2011

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Despite a whopping increase in the number of cyber crimes in the state over the past few years, the state’s cyber police still remain illequipped to contain the menace, both in terms of manpower and infrastructure.
While the number of complaints pertaining to the cyber and mobile-related crimes in the state that were received by the police during 2010 touched a whopping 80,000, the strength of the state cyber police force remains around 80.
More pitiable is that the request placed by the cyber police for procuring advanced cyber forensic tools two years ago still remains on paper.
The Hi-Tech Crime Enquiry Cell attached to the Police Headquarters here, deals with advanced cyber and mobile crimes, alone had handled 4,440 investigations during 2010 as against 584 in 2007 - an increase by manifolds.
While the total number of petitions received by the state’s cyber police units during 2009 was around 37,000, it has almost touched 80,000 in 2010, a majority of which are mobile phone thefts.
The only Cyber Police station in the state having jurisdiction of the entire state was set up in 2009. However, the government is yet to sanction any posts for the police station.
At present the DySP of the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) is holding the additional charge of the cyber police station and 10 police officials including a circleinspector, sub-inspectors and constables are posted on working arrangement, whereas the Cyber Police station of the neighbouring Karnataka is headed by a SP and has four DySPs, eight CIs and SIs each and more than 20 constables. It is more pitiable that the request for cyber forensic tools for a set of Cyber Police Station still remains on the papers. Owing to the inordinate delay, most of those tools have now become outdated, sources said.
The state police have constituted cyber cells in all the districts, the average strength of the cyber cells in less than five. Sources also said that the police personnel being posted at the cyber police station as well as the cyber cells are not being given proper training.
“Cyber forensics is a field that is undergoing rapid progress and hence it is essential that the cyber police officials are kept updated,” said a police officer who requested anonymity. Moreover, many technically qualified police officials are not posted in the cyber cell. DGP Jacob Punnoose, however, said that compared to other states in India, the cyber police of Kerala had been more effective.
“Cyber crimes are an evolving process and hence a specialised system to counter it is yet to be structured. It is expertise that matters and not the numbers. Our aim is to make all police officials in the state capable of dealing with basic cyber crimes,” he said.
With the use of cyber and mobile phone applications keep on increasing, the number of offences in these sectors will also be in the upward trend in the coming years. Hence the government should make immediate steps to ensure a effective cyber policing in the state, say experts.