With memes and movies, Rajasthan Police warns youth against cyber crimes

From quoting iconic Bollywood songs and dialogues to sharing memes, the Rajasthan Police is using popular culture as a tool to raise awareness among youngsters about online luring and fake social media profiles during the ongoing Valentine's week.

The creative messages, with a twist of humour, are being shared by the state police force on its official Facebook account and Twitter handle to grab the attention of youngsters who might easily fall prey to scamsters.

The social media posts are also being used to desist the youth from following gangsters on social media.

A tweet shared on 'Chocolate Day' (February 9) was the iconic poster from the blockbuster film 3 Idiots.

Captioned "jahapanah tussi great ho, chocolate kubool karo," a famed dialogue from the film, it alerted people to stay away from "digital chocolate" and adopt cyber safety to ensure "all is well" -- a catchphrase of one of the lead protagonists as well as a hit song from the 2009 movie.

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Warning people against sharing their OTPs with anyone, a post on 'Rose Day' (February 7) had the image of a WhatsApp inbox with two people chatting about how one of them lost all savings due to an online scam.

A caption at the bottom of the image read, "roz roz tum jo sanam aisa karoge, paise lut jayenge to aahen bharoge (If you keep on doing this, you will lose all your money)" -- a parody of a song from the 1996 Bollywood blockbuster "Saajan Chale Sasural".

And for girls, police came up with a creative message to caution them about how fake profiles on social media can harm them.

"Kal aaj aur kal, kabhi bhi aa sakta hai fake proposal," the post read.

Additional Director General (Technical Services) Sunil Dutt said the plans of cyber criminals can be thwarted if there is awareness among the masses.

And linking Valentine's week with cyber crime is an effort in that direction, he said.

Though it is a long-term campaign of Rajasthan Police to make people aware about cyber crimes, we picked Valentine's week to reach out to youngsters, Dutt said.

Talking about the force's latest post shared on 'Promise Day' on Saturday, the officer said a poster from the cult film Gangs Of Wasseypur has been used to desist people from getting influenced by gangsters through social media posts.

"Hazrat, hazrat, hazrat, aaj ka pakka promise, na gansgters ko karenge follow na kisi ko karne denge (let's promise not to follow gangsters and discourage others from doing so)," read the caption accompanying the poster depicting actor Manoj Bajpayee.

According to officials, the social media team of the Rajasthan Police has been quite active for some time now and similar creative campaigns have been launched from time to time over the last one-and-a-half years.

Film songs, poetry, punchlines, and dialogues from popular Hindi movies are being used in the campaigns, they said.

Interesting messages are easily understood by the common man. Earlier, on occasions like Holi, and New Year's Eve, such campaigns were launched and proved to be very popular, the officer said.

Meanwhile, people too are appreciating the innovative initiative albeit with some suggestions.

"It is a humble request to put a ban on all kinds of songs and events that promote gun culture. Also, instructions should be given to You Tube and Instagram to not encourage them," tweeted Dharm Bainada.

Another social media user, Vishwadeep said, "Rajasthan Police is doing a great job to reform youngsters who have deviated from the path of goodness. I would like to thank the officers running this campaign and also the entire police department."