Trichy gets cyber crime cell at police commissioner's office

To bring down cyber crimes in Trichy, the city police commissioner, Shailesh Kumar Yadav, inaugurated a cyber crime cell at the commissioner's office on Friday.

Following the inauguration, the cyber crime cell received three complaints so far. The complaints included online lottery, pornographic messages through SMS to a woman and a life threatening message to another.
The cell will function at the ground floor at the office of the commissioner of police. A team of policemen comprising an inspector, a sub-inspector and four from other ranks will initially look after complaints. Further, the number will go up according to the increase in rate of crime. At present, an SI will take care of things until an inspector is appointed.

Cyber crime cells were already set up in Chennai and Coimbatore and have been functional so far. Later, Madurai and Tirunelveli will get cyber crime cells. The government has sanctioned Rs 16.5 lakh to set up a cyber lab in Trichy.

As of now, the Trichy police have come across a number of cyber crime cases that mainly include harassment of women through SMS, ATM fraud, online-lottery and online-multi level marketing (MLM) scams.

Prior to setting up the cell in Trichy, such cases were being dealt with by the respective police stations. As dealing with cyber crime cases needed a long time and expertise, policemen were struggling with breakthroughs.

"There was a government order to set up a cyber crime cell in Trichy already. But it was not implemented. So, I took the initiative and inaugurated the cell in the city," said Yadav.

"As there was no inspector available, a team headed by an SI will take care of things. An inspector will be appointed very soon. Meanwhile, cyber crime officers will be trained in the Tamil Nadu Police Academy to deal with cyber crime cases. The trained officers will be helpful in giving clues to the investigation officers to crack cases, he added.

"Though the cyber crime cell comes under the city police jurisdiction, it will entertain complaints from across the district," he said.