NT Bureau : There has been a 1,648 per cent increase in Cyber Crimes in Tamilnadu over a decade, Chief Minister M K Stalin told the State Assembly on Monday.
Moving the demand for grants for Police and Fire services department, he said the process of digitization, internet penetration, and widespread
use of mobile phones had virtually resulted in the steady increase of Cyber Crimes in the recent past.
‘In 2011, the number of Cyber Crime complaints received were 748, whereas in 2021 it was 13,077, which is an increase of 1,648 per cent over a decade’, he added.
The challenges faced in Cyber Crime cases are that the accused are mostly from foreign countries which complicates the process of investigation, arrest
of accused and the recovery of property, Stalin said.
Even though bank accounts of the accused are frozen, the process of redeeming the money back to the complainant is unduly delayed due to the cumbersome legal procedures, he said, adding, to tackle this problem, Cyber Crime teams were formed in all 11 Police Districts of Greater Chennai Police in addition to the five Cyber Crime Police Stations, each one at all the four zones and one in CCB, with training and investigation support from Central Crime Branch (CCB) on a total outlay of Rs 85.69 lakh.
To carry out the investigation on scientific lines, cyber forensic lab has been setup with a high end forensic work station, disc forensic, mobile forensic and social media tool at a cost of Rs 6.90 crores under the Safe City project, the Chief Minister said. Due to the seamless efforts of Cyber crime squad, Rs 6.75 crore have been redeemed back to the complainants in the last couple of months itself, Stalin said.