Joint Cyber Crime Coordination Teams must ensure that online felons get convicted fast

Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jamtara, Mewat and Visakhapatnam are spread all across the country, but what they have in common is a thriving cottage industry — of cyber crime. The Central Government has set up seven Joint Cyber Crime Coordination Teams for these cyber-crime hotspots. But the above-mentioned seven towns and cities are not the only ones where online criminals are operating from. As a report in The Pioneer said, over three dozen towns and villages in nine States, from Delhi to Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat to Assam, have become cyber crime hotspots which are being closely monitored by law enforcement agencies. In a bid to cripple India’s financial system and national security grid, hostile countries have also joined in the fun. Unsurprisingly, the foreign cyber attackers mostly belong to countries like China, Pakistan and Türkiye. It is a well-known fact that cyber crooks have been stealing money from people by deploying a variety of ruses — luring unsuspecting victims into accepting ‘lottery’ money, extracting credit or debit card details on some pretext or the other, making lucrative offers, etc. There have also been crackdowns on cyber felons, but the need for coordination was often felt by the authorities. The reason is simple: since online connectivity is not restricted by police jurisdictions, it becomes very difficult for cops in, say, Delhi investigating an online theft to catch the culprit in Jamtara in Jharkhand. Jamtara has come to symbolise a cyber crime hotspot because of a web series made on it.

The Centre’s worry is that new hotspots have begun to emerge. It is not that no coordinated effort was made in the past. In 2020, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, came into being. In the last few years, however, several more cyber crime hubs have emerged. The number and kind of victims have also multiplied multifold; it is no longer uneducated or less informed people who have fallen prey to the online pirates; even highly educated and reasonably tech-savvy persons have lost their money. Therefore, a properly coordinated endeavour at the national level was the need of the hour. A couple of points need to be made here. First, the Government and other authorities concerned should also sensitise ordinary people about the perils and types of cyber crime. As soon as a trick by cyber felons is detected, people should be informed about it. Second, the long arm of the law should not just reach the criminals but also reach fast, so that they are not deprived of the chance to fleece more innocents. Third, the joint teams must ensure that the guilty get convicted; a high conviction rate would be a big deterrent. And, finally, the Centre and States may consider the possibility of special courts to try online felons. After all, most of their victims are common people who suffer badly.