Cyber crime is snowballing by the year. The Cyber Crime Cell received 79 cyber crime complaints in 2006, 271 in 2009, and 390 till September 30, in 2010. A joint initiative by the Pune Police and Nasscom has provided cyber training to a total of 1,922 officers and police personnel, majority of whom are from Pune.

"The Cyber Training Lab, which was set up with the objective to improve cyber skills of law-enforcing agency personnel, was set up in January 2007 and has trained 26 assistant police commissioners, 96 police inspectors, 135 assistant police inspectors, 110 police sub-inspectors and 1,087 police constables till date," said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Cell, Rajendra Dahale.

"Now that these officials are trained in dealing with cyber crime, citizens can approach them directly with their complaints. This is an on-going training process and aims at equipping maximum number of police officials in tackling cyber crime," added Dahale.

He said that the initiative aims to train as many as 8,500 police officers, head constables and constables in the coming years. A total of 20 officers, head constables and constables are trained in a week.

Assistant Police Inspector Dr Sanjay D Tungar from the Cyber Crime Cell said that the idea is for police officials to understand how to survey a crime scene and preservation of evidence, identification and handling of digital evidence, understanding computer hardware and data storage, among other things.

"As part of the training, officials from the Cyber Crime Cell make visits to the lab in order to share their cyber crime experiences with trainees," said Tungar.

Paresh Degaonkar, zonal manager, Nasscom, said that the officers are trained in the Basic', Advanced' and refresher course' levels. "The basic level constitutes training personnel who have not used computers before. The course structure in this level includes computer data fundamentals, information on concepts like hardware and software, the internet, types of cyber crime, hacking attacks, cyber laws and precautions to be taken while conducting search and seizures on the crime scene," said Degaonkar.

"This advanced level includes courses on latest technology crimes, credit card frauds, online banking frauds, phishing attacks, Nigerian frauds, mobile crimes, cyber crime investigation and cyber forensics. Once trained, these law enforcement officials will be well equipped to carry out various activities like analysing and scrutinising data on digital media, e-mail tracking, extracting evidence using forensic tools, and on understanding cyber crime-related legislation," added Degaonkar.

The initiative has also witnessed cyber training provided to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Maharashtra Intelligence Academy, apart from outreach programmes for police in other parts of the state such as Satara, Parbhani, Sangli, Kolhapur and Nasik.

"Cyber training for public prosecutors and the Judiciary has been part of the initiative. It aims at making members of the Judiciary aware of the kind of cyber crimes they are expected to come across and how these should be dealt with," said Sandip Gadiya, one of the instructors and the manager at the Pune Cyber Lab.

Police sub-inspector, D V Dokhe, from the Hadapsar police station, feels that the theoretical and practical aspects of the training helped her considerably in understanding cyber crimes. "The courses have given me an in-depth view of cyber crimes and how they should be tackled. I would now be able to assist our IT squad," said Dokhe.