Are you a cyber crime victim?

BANGALORE: While most cities in India are racing to garner other kinds of laurels, Bangalore is battling tooth and nail to seize the title of cyber crime capital of our country. Spams and obscene mails have become so frequent that cyber crime requires no introduction for Bangaloreans today. Close to 200 cyber crime cases are recorded every year in the city, however, only 10 per cent of them are actually solved.There are many reasons for these increasing incidents of cyber crime in the city. Firstly, the problem stems from the root cause, that is the conviction rate has been on the decline in the last decade. Out of 307 cases that were filed in the past nine years, only 60 of them were actually charge sheeted. Although a separate cyber crime police station was established in 2001, the cases registered shows no decline.A police official while disclosing the difficulties, they come across during investigation said, “A lot of these crimes are committed by foreign citizens, especially Nigerians. The government fails to cooperate with the officials and it just adds on to our obstacles.”Secondly, a lot of evidence is lost either during the investigation or due to lack of awareness amongst the public. Many a time, people do not take these things seriously and end up deleting the mails. Also, a lot of time is wasted, if the crime is committed by a person outside the jurisdiction of the respective police station. For example, if someone is hacking an account in Bangalore from Mumbai, then the task becomes tedious for the local officials as they have to get evidence, all the way from Mumbai which ultimately results in loss of time and delay. Lastly, the amount of care and expertise required in tackling cyber crime issues is quite high. “The whole process of tracking cyber crime is very technical in nature and requires advance skills and dexterity by the prosecuting agencies”, said Siji Malayil, criminal lawyer, Karnataka High Court. He adds, “Cyber crime is still new and not many people are aware of its technicalities. Spreading awareness is a long process and government should take some hard and fast steps to ensure its recognition”.Uday Shankar, another lawyer, Karnataka High Court while commenting upon the lacunae in the investigation procedure said,“ There are no special cells in Bangalore and many people depend upon the police, who aren’t aware of the intricacies of the investigation process. It is highly essential that cyber crime is introduced in colleges as a part of their academic curriculum.” He also stressed upon the need to have regulatory agencies who can track down the IP address, which exists in the US but is not yet introduced in India.It is high time officials in Bangalore introduce new techniques and technologies to track down the cyber crime perpetrators. With the lack of public awareness and inept investigation procedures, such crimes are bound to accelerate in the coming years.