Steep rise in cyber crime cases in Himachal Pradesh

There has been a steep rise in the number of cyber crime complaints in Himachal Pradesh posing a major challenge for the enforcement agencies to deal with these.
Disclosing this on Tuesday, Director General of Police (DGP), Sanjay Kundu said the state police received around 5000 complaints on every passing day to be registered on the National Cyber Crime Portal (NCRP).
In the current year alone, he said, state cyber crime police station at Shimla has received 2,129 complaints pertaining to financial frauds across the state.
The cyber crime cell, while dealing with these cases, has successfully got refunded Rs 75,36,789 to the victims and put on hold the transaction of Rs 1,53,76,785 involved during this period.
“In view of the growing cases, the police have sent a proposal to the state government to set up a cyber crime police station in each of the districts (except Lahaul and Spiti and Kinnaur),” said Kundu.
He said the citizens were reporting cybercrime complaints on NCRP portal of the Ministry of Home Affairs and national cyber crime helpline number 1930.
The state cyber crime control room in Shimla received many calls on daily basis to report to the Financial Module of NCRP for necessary action by financial intermediaries and banks, he added.
The DGP informed that once a complaint is reported in NCRP or in financial module, an acknowledgment is sent to the complainant’s nearest police station and then to the respective banks, e-wallet and e-commerce websites.
Based on the complaints in the cyber crime police station, the concerned financial intermediary follows the fraud money trail to take action in terms of debit freezing or lien working of the suspect accounts and the same information is updated in the NCRP, he said.
According to DGP, during this process, suspect’s multiple bank accounts and other financial intermediaries get frozen.
Meanwhile, the state government has set up two more cyber crime police stations, one each at Dharamshala and Mandi.