Assam Police lacks basics on cyber crimes

GUWAHATI, June 13 – Sounds bizarre but true. In an era ruled by sophisticated crimes Assam Police still lacks the basic firepower to handle or monitor cyber crimes even as a sharp increase in such cases have been witnessed in the last couple of years.

Forget about creating awareness among the common people, most of the thana-level police personnel are not even acquainted with the know-how of a computer.

Moreover, the proposal of having a full-fledged cyber crime laboratory with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) which was placed around three years back too seems to be gathering dust.

The cyber crime laboratory proposal of Rs 60 lakh included the provision of having all the basic tools required for tracking online crimes.

“Be it having trained human resource or requisite technology to counter online crimes, the State is lagging far behind, which understandably is facilitating the cause of the wrongdoers,” a senior Assam Police official claimed.

He stated that though the State witnesses at least hundred cases of cyber crime every year, only 25 per cent of them gets reported largely due to the sheer ignorance on the part of the thana-level police official.

“As the computerization programme for the Assam Police could not be materialized, things could not take a lift within the force,” rued the official.

On having the cyber crime laboratory, he said that the lab would come handy in tracking the cyber criminals and what is even more important is to have a proper monitoring cell that would help tracking the online correspondence of suspects, especially those underground.

The Chief Minister, it may be mentioned, did assure in the last budget that the laboratory would be set up soon.

“If we can have a proper cyber security system intact, half of the crimes could be prevented,” he asserted.

He went on to inform that the CID, which has a special cyber crime cell, has registered around 12 cases in the last couple of years, most of them being cases of issuing threat mail.

“In all the cases we have found that the crime is committed through cyber cafés and so we are pushing for a legal cushion which would make record maintenance of the customers mandatory,” he stated.