Cyber Command Centre to get new vertical to tackle child abuse, crimes against women online

Bengaluru: Director General of Police (DGP) Pronab Mohanty said on Friday a new vertical would be added to the Cyber Command Centre (CCC) to focus on tackling abuse against children online, crimes against women and other vulnerable sections of society.

Mohanty, the head of Cyber Command Centre (CCC), said this while speaking at the inauguration of the ‘Victim Centric Interviewing Training Programme’ organised in collaboration with the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC). 

“We are meeting at this platform to sharpen our skills in this kind of specialised investigation. After this, we expect you to go out and impart it to others. You are the core of a vertical that will deal with these types of crimes. This particular experiment will lead to a vertical within the CCC devoted to battling Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) online and crimes against women and other vulnerable sections of society on the internet,” Mohanty told the officers and staff gathered in the programme. 

Twenty-three seed trainers from the state police’s cybercrime police stations — from the constabulary to the DGP — were picked for the two-day training initiative.

They will then impart the training to other officials across the state in the coming months. 

Scott K Schonauer, Supervisory Special Agent, US Consulate; Pilar Ramirez, vice president, National Capacity Building at ICMEC; Guillermo Galarza, vice president, Partnerships and Law Enforcement Training; Dr Geeta Sekhon, Global Consultant, United Nations; Eva Veldhuizen Ochodnicanova, Forensic Psychologist; Dipti Peteti, Criminal Fraud Investigator, US Consulate General, Chennai-Regional Security Office; and ES Bijumon, Project Director, ICMEC (India), were present. 

The Cyber Tipline, earlier operated within the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), is now under the CCC after its establishment last year.

The tipline, which has since been strengthened and streamlined, primarily focuses on CSAM and gets information from the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), based on which the cases are registered, officials said.