Cybercrimes on rise after demon: Top cop

​Hyderabad: Rachakonda Commissioner of Police Mahesh M Bhagwat asked the police officers to get trained in dealing banking frauds.

Speaking after inaugurating one-day training session on ‘Cyber Security and Cybercrime Investigation’ for Law and Order police officers of entire Rachakonda Commissionerate, Bhagwat said after demonetisation there had been a substantial rise in reporting of cybercrimes which was alarming. He said fraudsters were particularly targeting innocent middle-class people and looting through online banking and other finance related frauds.

 “It has become a major challenge for us. Common man is easily getting cheated by the fraudsters, innocently sharing his credentials like One Time Password (OTPs), date of birth, credit/debit card numbers etc over the phone. 

An unknown person under the disguise of a bank official speaks in Hindi or English over phone, the victim blindly believing him to be genuine shares all his vital information and thus gets cheated and loses all his hard-earned money. In one case, an innocent victim shared his OTP 15-20 times with the fraudsters ended up in a huge loss. So, it’s high time to get trained in dealing such banking frauds which are of top priority now,” he said.

 "As you people are the field officers, you have to know the seriousness of the cybercrime and its depth. No officer should send back a complainant citing his inability in dealing a cybercrime complaint. In case of any technical assistance you can immediately contact the cybercrime, police station and direct the victim there for quick redressal,” the Commissioner advised.

 Bhagwat said as there were only four police stations in the State for cybercrimes, there was too much dependency on them. It is imminent that every officer should utilise this training programme and solve the reported crimes at their end, the Commissioner said.

Harinath, ACP, Cybercrimes, Rachakonda, Sunny, from VATINS Security Systems and Prasad Patibandla, faculty at the Central Detective Training Institute delivered useful lectures on cyber security, mobile forensics which were enlightening. 

Mahesh Bhagwat felicitated the trainers. The staff of cybercrimes and the officers the from entire Commissionerate participated in this training programme.