Panel to suggest steps to check cyber crime

With the country witnessing a 40 per cent rise in cyber crimes annually, the Union Home Ministry on Wednesday set up an expert group to prepare a roadmap for effectively tackling cyber crimes.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has cleared the constitution of the group comprising . Rajat Moona, Director General of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Pune; Gulshan Rai, Director General of Cert-In; Prof Krishnan (Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru; D Dass of IIIT, Bengaluru and Dr Manindra Aggarwal, Professor of Computer Science in IIT-Kanpur. Alok Kumar, Joint Secretary (Centre-State Relations) in Home Ministry will be the Convenor.

The expert group has been tasked to prepare a road map for effectively tackling the cyber crime in the country, give suitable recommendations on all its facets, and recommend possible partnerships with public and private sectors, NGOs, international bodies and international NGOs. The terms of reference also says that the group can suggest other special measures it may like to recommend with regard to tackling cyber crimes.

This exercise comes against the backdrop of issues related to cyber crime flagged at various fora, including Parliament.

“India, with a fast growing economy, is susceptible to International and domestic cyber attacks and there is a need to ensure cyber crime-free environment. There has been almost 40 per cent annual increase in cyber crimes registered in the country during the last 2-3 years,” a senior Home Ministry official said.

In the “Crime in India 2013” report, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has identified cyber crimes as a new class of crimes rapidly increasing due to extensive use of Internet and IT-enabled services.

While there were 2,071 cyber crime cases registered under IT Act and IPC in 2012, the number rose to 5,693 in 2013. The number of persons arrested also rose from 2,071 to 3,301. Among the metros, Bengaluru reported the highest number of 399 cyber crime cases under IT Act in 2013 followed by Vishakhapattanam (173), Hyderabad (159) and New Delhi (131).