Shimla to get its first cyber police station

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 30

While the cyber crime has seen a spurt during the past on decade, Himachal’s first cyber police station will come up at Shimla soon.

“The cyber police station would be set up in the vicinity of the state police headquarters as the cyber lab is under construction in the same premises and both will complement each other,” said DGP Sanjay Kumar.

The process of procurement of equipment for the cyber police station has already been set in motion. A police officer of the rank of Deputy SP will head the police station which would have jurisdiction over the entire state.

The police station would become functional in the current financial year. The staff deployed in the cyber police station would be fully trained about various aspects of cyber crime and the latest crime detection techniques.

There has been an increase in cyber crimes. During the past one year about 450 cases related to cyber crimes were registered in the state with the maximum cases pertaining to stealing of trade secrets and hacking e-mail and social networking sites.

However, sources in the cyber crime branch revealed that, in fact, the number of complaints is quite high but in many cases the complainants did not want registration of FIR and were only interested in getting the money back.

In most of the cyber crime cases, the criminals are operating from outside Himachal and located mainly in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar and Northeast and tracking them was an intricate and tricky exercise.

A cyber lab is being developed at a cost of Rs 50 lakh as a part of “centre for cyber security” while voice analysis and digital forensic facility is coming at Forensic Lab at Junga, 30 km from here. It would go a long way in speedy investigations and analysis of samples of computer files, voice recording and digital data which are sending outside the state would be done here only.

The cyber police station would also help in cyber patrolling and keeping a tab on the illegal activities in the virtual world besides investigating cases related to credit card frauds, illegal downloading, industrial espionage, child pornography, kidnapping children via chat rooms, scams, cyber terrorism, creation and distribution of viruses etc.