Mumbai to get 5 more cyber police stations; first one on Republic Day

Photo for representational purpose

Five dedicated police stations to tackle cybercrimes are set to come up in Mumbai shortly, one of them this month itself on Republic Day. These police stations will be inaugurated in each of the five regions - North, South, West, East and Central - demarked by the department.

As per a report in The Times of India, more than 2,200 cybercrime cases were registered between January and November last year while the pandemic raged in the city. The most common were scams relating to online liquor/food orders.

Currently, there is a single cyber police station at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), with about 60 personnel. "It is inconvenient for people from the distant suburbs to travel all the way to BKC with complaints. So, the government has decided to sanction one police station for each region," said deputy commissioner of police S Chaitanya, spokesperson for the department.

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On January 26, the first of the five cyber police stations will be inaugurated at Samta Nagar in Kandivli East for North Region. The premises comprises of an operations room, a complaint registration room and an in-charge cabin. Space is still being scouted for the other four cyber police stations. Each station will have 30-50 personnel and they will not be given any bandobast, law-and-order or any other routine duties. For now, allocation of personnel will take place from existing police stations.

"Cybercrime investigation needs special skills and know-how. We will handpick personnel who are already trained to start off with. Gradually, fresh staff will be trained and taken in," said a police officer.

Cyber lawyer Vicky Shah said it's essential that personnel trained in cybercrime investigation are not transferred to any other department later. "What happens is that officers pick up skills and just as they start putting these to work, a transfer order comes in. The officer is posted in another department which is not remotely connected to cybercrime and he loses touch with whatever he has learnt," Shah said.

He added that setting up specialised cybercrime courts that can dispose of cases speedily are much needed as the conviction rate is very low - only 7% in the period from January to November 2020.