Frustrated by unrequited love, Pradeep Kumar often called the husband of the woman he loved and verbally abused him, until one fateful night last August, cyber police officials arrested him at his apartment in Vytilla near Kochi. A senior executive of a ceramics company based in Dubai, Pradeep Kumar, hailing from Trichy, was about to leave the country via Nedumbassery Airport when the arrest took place.
A troubled man, Pradeep often consumed alcohol and fought with his wife. High on emotions, he would then call the man who enjoyed the affections of the woman he fancied and attack him with a barrage of vulgarities. Unable to bear this abuse, the couple eventually approached the cyber police. When the police took Pradeep to Coimbatore, they realized he was unaware of the cyber laws and its clauses which severely punish those talking abuses over phone. After spending 10 days in judicial custody at Coimbatore Central Prison, he is now out on bail, although the case is still on.
"Ignorance about the law is one of the major reasons behind the growing rate of cyber crimes. Though most culprits are well-educated and from affluent families, they are often unaware of what constitutes a cyber crime and what the consequences are," says M Selvarajan, assistant commissioner of police, who deals with cyber crimes.
Though police conduct regular awareness drives about the gravity of cyber crimes, online criminal activities are increasing at an alarming rate. City police have registered 151 cases of obscene mails sent, threat calls and hacking while there were only 63 such cases in the previous year. The number of obscene SMS sent this year is 389, a substantial increase from the 243 registered last year.
In most such cases, we were able to arrest the culprits without delay. We trapped them by tracking their mobile phones and computers. Compared to other crimes, it would be very difficult to escape the net for cyber crimes. Police are highly trained in cyber laws and have sophisticated cyber equipment, so it will be difficult to escape detection," says Hema Karunakaran, deputy commissioner of police.
As far as cyber police officials are concerned, financial frauds involving foreign nationals remain a tough task to deal with as they operate from locations that may not be within police and legal jurisdiction. I have learned never to trust people promising huge sums of money online. No one should fall victim to cyber crimes," says R Banu, a teacher at a private school in Coimbatore. As educated as she is, she says she fell victim to greed and believed that she had actually won $75,00,000 and thus paid the fraudsters the Rs 5.5 lakh they demanded as service charge. "Don't ever believe mails promising you monetary benefits,'' says Hema.
A large number of cyber crimes are being committed by jilted lovers, who wish to seek revenge on their estranged partner. In such cases, the victim often remains silent. With more cases in the open now, victims are more willing to file a complaint," says Selvarajan. As the police are fast catching the perpetrators, public are now getting ready more and more to file complaints. That is a positive outcome,'' says Selvarajan.