Increased Net access sees spurt in cyber bullying

Mumbai: While cyber crime is rapidly increasing due to extensive use of Internet and IT-enabled services, cyber bullying, which involves the use of electronic communication to intimidate a person via messages, is the new menace for those spending time on social media sites.

According to data collected by the Mumbai police, cyber crime in Mumbai has increased by 50 per cent to 15,497 cases in 2016 as compared to 11,592 cases in 2015. Ironically, the number of cases handled by the cyber police in Mumbai resulting in conviction has been consistently below 25 per cent since 2013.

Thanks to cyber bullying, many youths who are targeted experience depression and are inclined to take an extreme step. In a recent case of a 16-year-old Navy Nagar resident, Poonam Yadav, a Class IX student, jumped from the sixth floor of a building opposite her school on February 6 after she was cyber bullied. Yadav was wrongly accused of creating a fake profile of one of her friends and sharing her contact number along with some lewd comments.

According to the Mumbai police, the hackers and bullies in such cases mostly consist of young people between the ages of 14 to 34. Schoolgoing children are not spared either. The children who are cyber bullied are most likely already being bullied in person, police sources said. With cyber bullying, the bullying is just taken a notch further, they said.

When The Asian Age contacted DCP Cyber Crime, Akhilesh Singh, he said, “The problem of cyber bullying has seen a spurt after social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have become easily accessible. We are creating awareness among youth to use it as a boon to the society, and not misuse it for the worse.” Mr Singh added, “With advanced technology, it becomes very challenging to nab the hacker as many times they use a server based abroad for committing cyber crimes.”