New Delhi: The escalating, hi-tech world of cyber crimes in India is taking the police force back to the classroom.
Long been outsmarted by the new breed of IT criminals, who use sophisticated equipments to prey on victims on the Internet, the cops are being trained to handle everything - from porn and e-mail abuse to theft of intellectual property.
And helping them in their endeavour are Indian IT companies, who are not only holding workshops to train cops in cyber-sleuthing techniques but also providing them with state-of-the-art gadgets to fight crime on the Net.
What started as an experiment in Mumbai in March this year will soon be replicated in other cities, says the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), the IT industry umbrella group.
Nasscom joined forces with Mumbai Police to launch the first of its kind Mumbai Cyber Lab that helps train police personnel, creates an interface between the police and people, and spreads awareness about cyber crimes.
"With more and more computer crimes being reported from different parts of the country, we decided to check the preparedness of our police force in tackling such offences," said Sunil Mehta, vice president of Nasscom.
"We found that very few police officers in our cities were trained to tackle crimes like destruction or theft of intellectual property, data alteration, Internet time theft and circulation of porn stuffs," Mehta told IANS.
"And since people are also not sure how the police officer will react when they go to register their complaints, most Net crimes go unreported. Keeping this mind, we decided to launch the Mumbai Cyber Club.
"And it has been a huge success. So far we have trained three batches of Mumbai Police, with 40 officers in each batch, in all aspects of cyber crimes."
With a view to increase interface between the people and police, a 12-seater call centre has been set up, manned by the officers of Mumbai Police, to help victims lodge their complaints on telephone.
A state-of-the-art virtual private network, connecting over 150 police stations in the city, is also likely to be set up soon to facilitate exchange of information online, said Mehta.
The model is now being replicated in other parts of the country.
"It will be first implemented in New Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. Other major cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad will be added by end of the current year," said Mehta.
All the expenses for helping the police gain knowledge of hard disk drives, processors and hyperlinks will be absorbed by Nasscom, a non profit organisation with 800 IT firms as members.
Internet penetration in India has grown from just four million users in 1998 to around 30 million, and studies show the number will see an explosive growth over the next few years.
With the sharp increase in the use of IT, the country is also witnessing a spurt in cases where tech-savvy criminals turn to high-tech gadgets and the Internet to commit crimes.
In a recent case, a New Delhi-based software engineer was held for using the e-mail ID of one of his female colleagues to circulate sleazy messages and posting morphed photographs on adult websites.
Experts say although cyber crime cell within a police station has been set up in select cities, there is a mental block among law enforcement officials regarding the computer related crimes and adoption of new technology is slow.
"All of us need to realise that cyber crime is something that is going to go way beyond Indian IT companies or individuals and police will have to deal with it," said an IT security expert with a private financial institution.
"And the only way for a law enforcing agency to catch a cyber criminal is to become a master in their game."
Source: Manorama Online
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