Cybercrime rises in Himachal, 18K complaints in 5 years

Tribune News Service

Bhanu P Lohumi

Shimla, April 3

Cyberspace has become the new hotspot of crime. As many as 18,000 complaints of cybercrime were received in Himachal in the past five years (2017-2021).

The cybercrime cases increased at an alarming rate during the Covid lockdown period. As many as 6,258 cybercrime complaints were received in 2020 and 6,207 in 2021, as compared to 2,914 complaints in 2019. Besides, financial frauds, cybercrime against women by blackmailing and threatening, stalking, defamation, morphing, fake profile and Internet crime through online gaming and sextortion, and targeting of old affluent men have increased significantly.

“Two range cyber police stations will be set up in Kangra and Mandi with state-of-the-art infrastructure and latest technologies and equipment to tackle crimes,” says DGP Sanjay Kundu.

“Cyber cells have been established in all 12 districts of the state. Cyber police station at the Shimla headquarters is being shifted to an independent spacious place in the SDA complex at Kasumpti, Shimla, where dedicated units and a cyber lab will be set up. It will become functional soon. Software and hardware worth Rs 1.5 crore have been purchased in the past one year for modernisation and upgrade to detect and solve cybercrime cases,” says Rohit Malpani, SP, Cyber Crime.

“About 50 per cent of the complaints pertain to financial frauds, 30 per cent to 35 per cent relate to social networks and the remaining are miscellaneous in nature. The digital literacy rate is quite high in Himachal but still people at large are ignorant about cybercrime. Creating awareness about cybercrime is the need of the hour,” he adds.

Malpani says, “Criminals are abusing social media. It is difficult to track and trace them, as most of the social networking sites are functioning from abroad and connecting and communicating with them is a time consuming process, which retards the pace of investigation. However, the number of FIRs registered is only 585 (about 3 per cent), as people are concerned with money refund in financial cases and fear social stigma in other cases”.

The police claim that the success rate in getting the money refunded in financial frauds is between 10 per cent and 15 per cent, which is better than most of other states. However, catching criminals still remains a daunting task as most of them operate from other states such as West Bengal, Odisha, Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and even abroad. About 75 police personnel are looking after cybercrime in the state.

Rate alarming during covid lockdown

• The cybercrime cases increased at an alarming rate during the Covid lockdown period. Besides, financial frauds, cybercrime against women by blackmailing and targeting of old affluent men have increased significantly.
• The police claim that the success rate in getting the money refunded in financial frauds is between 10 per cent and 15 per cent, which is better than most of other states.
• However, catching criminals still remains a daunting task as most of them operate from other states such as West Bengal, Odisha, Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and even abroad.
• About 75 police personnel are looking after cybercrime in the state. Rohit Malpani, SP, Cyber Crime, said: “Creating awareness about cybercrime is the need of the hour.”

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