Computers crash? don't bug cyber cops

City police's cyber cell gets harassed by frivolous complaints.

Mumbai: Pesky complaints, frivolous plaints and lots of angry tugs at the mop of the hair. Manning the cyber cell of the city police is no easy job.




Sample this: A 38-year-old man turns up at the cyber crime police station (CCPS) at the Bandra-Kurla Complex with a plaint against his estranged wife. He alleges that she is threatening him through the mobile phone, and urges the cyber cell to take action. The officer at the CCPS had to spend more that it was not a case of cyber crime.

Another man turns up stating that someone has stolen his computer, webcam and other computer accessories. "It took considerable efforts to make the man understand that it's a robbery case," said another official.

It was now become all in a day's work for the officers. They not only have to track down cyber criminals, but also counsel people who turn up at the police station with complaints not anywhere close to cyber crime.

"A lot of time goes into counselling uninformed complainants than into cracking cyber cases," rued an officer.

"A complainant came with an application, stating that someone had opened a webpage in the name of his company, and he wanted it closed down. The details provided in the said webpage were genuine, and that made us suspicious. After grilling the applicant, we came to know that he himself had opened the webpage, but having forgotten the hint question he was unable to close it down. He wanted us to contact the domain host concerned, and close the webpage down for him," the officer added.

The applicant had to be told that since no offence was committed, the cops could not do anything about it.

An officer from the CCPS said if the case is indeed a cyber offence, a first information report is registered, and the matter is taken up for investigation. "There have been several cases of applicants coming up with trivial cases, and asking us to investigate them," the officer said.

Asked why such applications were reaching the CCPS awareness campaign by the police, an targeted the educated youth. The ones approaching us with pointless complaints seem to have no cyber knowledge." He said the cell had registered around 25 cyber offences this year. But it had to turn down hundreds of applications not related to cyber crime.