Now Cyber Rakshaks to protect women's safety

Hyderabad: In order to create awareness on cyber security in the State, the She Teams have recruited students from different educational institutions as Cyber Rakshaks.

TS SHE team in association with End Now Foundation and TASK (Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge) launched the programme which was inaugurated by DGP Mahendar Reddy in Hyderabad on Monday.

These handpicked Cyber Rakshaks are trained to become ambassadors of digital safety. The four main objectives of Cyber Rakshak are advocating digital safety, making digital safety information and tools accessible to all, reducing the number of victims of cybercrimes and providing de-addiction support to the digital addicts.

Addressing the Cyber Rakshaks, M Mahendar Reddy said "we can make Telangana State as a hub for livelihood of women and children with great safety and security only when we synergise the efforts with a partnership of civil society only then a cybercrime-free society will be possible."

"In this society women can freely perform their duties 24/7 without any fear and live happily," he opined. The DGP said within core Hyderabad City, over 100 SHE teams are performing incognito and making their efforts to legally punish the violators against women safety.

He opined that a robust, sustainable mechanism should be applied to make more Cyber Rakshaks and thereby provide more security and safety to women and children. IGP Law and Order and incharge of women safety, Swati Lakra said SHE team members along with Cyber Rakshaks, psychiatrists, cyber safety experts and End Now teams visit the educational institutions and conduct awareness sessions on digital safety, conduct surveys and take feedback from the participants and refer victims of cyber abuse and addiction to the relevant specialists for further help.

Trustee of End Now Foundation and former Chief Justice V Easwaraiah and other speakers emphasised on the preventive measures to be taken to curb the spreading of cyber-bullying as an epidemic.

To get rid of the cybercrimes in different forms the speakers opined that an awareness shall be provided to the citizens on cyber-bullying, smartphone addiction, online safety, online surveillance, online frauds, social engineering crimes, fake news and other forms of digital abuse for saving them from the cybercrime offenders.

End Now Foundation representatives said that they have conducted more than 180 sessions and 20 workshops on digital safety and developed a unique smartphone addiction clinical scale and designed successful smartphone addiction therapy.

A total of 30 Cyber Rakshaks selected by conducting Info Sessions in Hyderabad, Warangal and Karimnagar for 268 Ambassadors. Cyber Rakshaks Shivani R, K Sowmya and A Dikshith Rao presented a skit showing the importance of Cyber Rakshak in rescuing the victims from cybercrime.