Soon, Coimbatore cops to get a hi-tech cyber lab

A senior police officer here said that they have sent a proposal to the head quarters seeking funds to equip the cyber crime unit with more technically sound personnel computers and software to deal with multipronged crimes committed by technologically sound miscreants. In 2014 a total of 1,222 complaint petitions were received. It increased to 1,342 last year. This year it has touched 1,268. This is more than the number of complaints received by a regular police station.  

Though the police are able to solve financial frauds and recover at least a small portion of the amount usurped from the victim, the number of persons arrested is very less. Only seven persons accused of committing cyber crimes have been arrested in the city this year.  

“We are dealing with posting obscene messages and images, hacking, facebook and whatsapp complaints, online banking and ATM frauds, data theft and manipulation, job rackets and mobile thefts, to name a few. But, the cyber crime cell is short staffed and technologically handicapped,” a police officer said. It is equipped with four computers and two softwares – one to analyse call details and the other for online crime detection. Even at the time of inception, both were outdated.   

Technical support 

The cyber lab seeks advanced software for detecting online financial frauds, data recovery software, cracking passwords of locked mobile phones and other electronic gadgets of miscreants and cloning software for parallel monitoring of computers used by the offenders. On the other hand the police are only equipped to spot an accused using his mobile phones in a 200 m radius.  “Global Positioning System (GPS) monitoring system will help identify the exact location of offenders,” an officer said. High speed internet connectivity and access to call details registered with the telecom service providers for easy monitoring of offenders are among other requirements sought by the city police.  

The cyber crime unit would need more technically sound police personnel to man the computers and at least 10 other police personnel to function like a regular police station.  “Most offenders indulging in financial and online scams are from the Bengaluru or in the Northern states near Delhi. But we don’t have the manpower to go there and nab them,” an officer said.