Cybercrime has managed to creep through most channels in India. A recent report by IndianSpend tracks the growing hold of cyber crimes taking place in the country.
It so appears that even popular personalities are being targeted by hackers. Just recently, an English national daily reported that Kannada actress Shruthi Hariharan had filed a complaint with the cybercrime police, alleging that unidentified users have morphed her nude photos and uploaded them on popular social sites. In fact, a fake Facebook page was also created wherein the obscene images were being uploaded. Another report by The Hindu talks about Channapatna MLA C.P. Yogeshwar being allegedly hacked by an unidentified user who managed to siphoned off Rs 1,90,000 from his bank account. A lot of such cases have surfaced in the recent past.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) indicated that Bengaluru is on top in India as far as incidents relating to cyber crimes are concerned. The study reported the number of cyber crimes in Bengaluru at 1,041, followed by Hyderabad at 354 and Kolkata at 111. Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai followed with 90, 26 and 29 respectively. The total number of cyber crime incidents in India was around 11,592 in 2015 with 8.9 per cent of these taking place in Bengaluru alone.
Karnataka Home Minister, G. Parameshwara on June 8, 2017 admitted that the cyber crime cases reported in the span of last two years resulted in no conviction because the authorities were “not able to reach the root of the problem.”
Most of the cyber crime cases reported in Bengaluru were relating to impersonation and identity theft. Unfortunately, as many experts may put it, Cyber-violence in India is not looked upon as an actual crime and many are not aware of the IT Act that protects individuals and their rights in this peripheral. Online violence is rising at a high rate and it requires much attention.
