Govt ‘Detachment’ Turns People into Esay Preys for Cyber Frauds
Ahmedabad Police meeting for Coldplay concerts (Image credit DGP Gujrat X.com)
Flourishing Fraud ‘Businesses’ Mock at Cyber Policing
By Amit Kumar
New Delhi, February 22: Cybercrime cases are on an exponential growth path in India. There seems almost an impunity at which cyber criminals strike at the people to rob their hard-earned money.
SN Singh (name changed) received a phone call on his mobile number on Wednesday morning. Unlike alerts of spam or fraud call, the telecom operator didn’t flash any warning. The senior citizen in his early eighties was warned of an imminent electricity cut.
The chain of sequences amid panic left the pensioner poorer by ₹1 lakh. His bank didn’t send him any message of debits from the account. In three instalments, fraudster withdrew day’s maximum limit of withdrawal.
Registering complaint at the cybercrime helpline 1930 led to no outcome in last four days. The cyber police station in-charge showed him a large pile of similar cases awaiting attention of investigators. The helpless octogenarian accepted daylight robbery through bank account his fait accompli.
A senior official working as a joint secretary in the Central government recently found that he too had been scammed by a cyber fraud. His spouse booked for maid servant through a website to which had had been guided by the Google search.
“With no loss of time, an agent turned up at the doorstep. He persuaded for cash advance. But no maid was sent, and soon it became that we had been scammed,” said the official.
But he was determined to pursue the fraudster. The police commissioner came in the loop. A police inspector, showing visible lack of interest, took up the case.
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“The address of the website was on a floor in Gurugram which was not even constructed in an under-construction building. The guard said that the police every second day visits the site to track the address,” added the official.
After a few months, the case was cracked. The fraudster operated from a jhuggi. “His bank accounts showed that he had amassed crores of rupees by scamming people,” said the police.
The fraudster told the police that he had warned his partner not to scam the official. “The address suggested that the target was a government official. But the partner was confident that nothing will happen. If not for the mistake, my business would have not been disrupted,” the fraudster told the police.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his monthly ‘Mann ki Baat’ radio broadcast cautioned the people against cyber frauds. “There is nothing like digital arrests and other ways that the cyber frauds employ to fleece the people,” Modi said in the radio programme.
The government appears to give a message that its task is limited to making people just aware of cyber frauds. When the people are robbed their money, transfers of amount take place into another Indian bank accounts only and phone calls are made with Indian mobile numbers.
The combined might of the Reserve Bank of India, the banks, the state police, the Ministry of Home Affairs is turned rudderless by uneducated cyber frauds operating out of jhuggi-clusters from remote locations. Lakhs of people who are victims gather sense that they are just helppess.
A report by The Hindu said there had been a 900 per cent jump in cases of “digital arrests” in Cyberabad alone in Telangana in 2024. There was a jump of 65 per cent in cybercrime cases in the city in 2024, said the report.
“India is among few nations where the government tells the people to be on guard. In other nations, the architecture of cyber security is such that the frauds don’t operate, and if they fleece the people they are nabbed in quick time,” said a senior official in the government.
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