More cops to stop cyber crime

Mumbai: Mumbai police likely to get four new cyber police stations, in addition to the already existing one, with one cyber police station dedicated to each zone ie. central, south, eastern, western and north. Presently, Mumbai has only one cyber police station in Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC). After the set up, these zone-wise divided cyber police stations, the detection rate is also likely to increase.

According to the police sources, the Maharashtra government had approved the setting up of four cyber police stations in the metropolis to tackle increasing number of such crimes, a senior police official from the BKC cyber police station. The tentative locations of new cyber police stations have been decided as follows- western-BKC, eastern-Ghatkopar, central-Worli, north-Kandivali, and south-Mumbai police headquarters at CSMT.

K.M.M. Prasanna, additional commissioner of police (crime) said, “The government has sanctioned 186 new posts for this initiative and most of them would be in the rank of assistant police inspectors. It will help us tackle cyber crime effectively.”

In December last year, the Mumbai police had set up a dedicated cyber cell in all the 93 police stations across the city, to tackle with the cyber crime like phishing, identity theft, internet fraud, ATM fraud, wire fraud, piracy and forgery. The police constables and officers were also sent for training for five days in the Mumbai’s Cyber Cell headquarters in BKC.

An officer added, there will be thorough co-ordination between the cyber cell in local police stations and dedicated cyber police stations, as cases dealing with a cyber crime of amount upto Rs 90,000 will be dealt by cyber cell, while those dealing with fraud amount with lakhs, will be looked after by the dedicated cyber police stations. However, the complainant can approach either of two, and they cannot deny the right to register a complaint.