Published On : Mon, Jul 31st, 2017

Cyber cell performs poorly, only 75 of 570 cases resolved so far!

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Nagpur:
Even as the latest IIT Kanpur study reveals that the big push for digitisation has escalated the risks of cyber crime, the 2 months old special cyber complaint redressal cell in Nagpur is fetching poorly on cracking the cases coming to it.

The centre was started in Nagpur on May 20 this year with much fanfare, but it appears to be going too slow on resolving the cases, thanks to the lackadaisical attitude of Nagpur police department. Official figures state that of the 570 complaints registered so far, only 75 were resolved.

The cell remarkably failed on attending 209 cases of missing mobile phones, of which only 16 cases could reach concrete closure till date. There was little development in the complaints of credit card frauds too. Out of the 210 compalints only 21 have been resolved. The slow pace of development in piling up cyber complaints indicates ignorance of concerned officials.

Miniscule manpower
Sources said the newly formed cyber cell has a total of 9 staffers including 7 officers and 2 junior staff. As per section 78 of IT Act, the cyber crime cases can only be handled by the officer of PI rank but the post is still lying vacant in the cell. The citizens are now hesitant to approach cyber cell in the event of any crime owing to their extremely poor performance.

Little success makes no gain
However Nagpur cyber cell has to its credit, the onus of cracking down on few complicated cases too. But despite tracing the location of perpetrators, the lack of staff bars the officers to reach out to the culprits. For instance a recent ATM fraud was tracked to the remote Jamtara village of Jharkhand. Insiders say that the officials had expressed their inability to bring the accused from such a distant place. Taking the other route, the cell has been conducting awareness drive on social media.

Major Cases
However the situation was not so at the beginning. Immediately after its formation, the Nagpur Cyber Cell had managed to decipher the fraud of Rs 9.31 lakh and get the amount returned to the complainant on July 22. The concerned fraud was committed through fake calls in the name of bank officials. Then, it also busted a racket misleading city youths under the garb of Prime Minister Skill Development Programme.

In another crack down, a group cheating through ATM frauds was also rounded up, in which 2 accused from Jharkhand and 2 child criminal were arrested. This group was notorious sydicate which had contacted as many as 9500 people across Maharashtra and tried their cheating ways upon them.

This apart they also called up youths in Gujarat, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan and cheated them of lakhs of rupees.

—Ravikant Kamble