In 9 years, not one conviction of cyber criminals in state

In 9 years, not one conviction of cyber criminals in state

BANGALORE: It has been nine years since the IT Act 2000 was passed. Since then, there has been a lot

On practical challenges in cyber crime investigation, Guruprasad said the cyber police station was inaugurated in 2001, a few months after the IT Act 2000 was passed, yet only 307 cases have been registered in the past nine years. “The annual average of cases is 37. If we look at the chargesheeted ones, only 60 cases come up out of these 307 cases. But there has not been a single conviction till date in Karnataka,” Guruprasad said.

Why is the number of convictions so low? According to him, several investigating officers themselves don’t know much about cyber crime. He narrated an incident to illustrate his point, relating to a multi-crore rupees scam in Belgaum.

“A year ago, there was a multi-level marketing scam to the tune of Rs 200 crore, and it was registered in Bellary. A lot of evidence were seized and on one occasion, when our team went to that police station, the personnel had secured some desktops and laptops. Surprisingly, there were no hard disks in them. The personnel even asked us what is a hard disc,” he said.

After the amendment to the IT Act in 2009, jurisdictional inspectors can also be investigating officers. “But there is not much awareness about this. We also need to educate prosecutors and the judiciary on how to investigate and punish cyber criminals,” he added.

IT secretary Ashok Kumar Manoli congratulated the cyber lab for its performance. “The government will set up another cyber lab in Mangalore,” Manoli said.