Bengaluru top city for cyber crime: NCRB

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Known to be an IT hub and tech capital of India, Bengaluru has yet again topped the list of the cities which are hotspots for cyber crimes, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) latest data revealed.

With 9,940 cases on record, Bengaluru's lead is substantial, far surpassing its counterparts. Hyderabad, another IT hub, reported only 282 cases, while cities like Lucknow, Ghaziabad, and Kanpur outpaced it.

The data showed that the cases of cyber crime have jumped more than 50 per cent in Karnataka with the state police registering 12,556 FIRs in 2022 as compared to 8,136 the previous year, making it the state with the second highest number of such incidents.

An analysis of the NCRB data shows that among the 28 states, Telangana logged the highest number of cyber crimes with 15,297 cases followed by Karnataka (12,556) and Uttar Pradesh (10,117) last year.

The rate of cyber crime cases in Karnataka stood at 18.6 per lakh population while chargesheeting in such cases was at 21.1, according to the NCRB data.

To tackle the surge, Bengaluru's City Police Commissioner has taken measures with eight dedicated police stations and Special Investigation Teams (SIT) now in place, streamlining the reporting and investigation process.

Despite these efforts, the city has already crossed 9,000 cyber crime cases by November this year. The Cybercrime Incident Report (CIR) has aided in improving the recovery of lost funds, allowing real-time freezing of transactions related to stolen money.

However, the recovery is still a fraction of the losses incurred. The analysis of the NCRB data showed that offences registered under the IT Act alone accounted for 12,549 FIRs and a majority of them were related to computer offences followed by cheating by personation by using computer resources.

The figure also includes crimes related to acts of publishing or transmitting material containing sexually explicit acts in electronic form.

Motive in 11,025 cases of cyber crime were fraud followed by 379 cases with an intention of extortion, 338 cases with an intention of sexual exploitation, the data showed.

K'taka saw steady rise in cases of |economic offences from 2020: NCRB

Karnataka saw a steady rise in cases related to economic offences in the last three years, a latest report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) said, as the southern state lodged 7,565 FIRs for such offences in 2022.

According to the NCRB's data, Karnataka registered 5,107 cases related to economic offences in 2020 and 6,447 cases in 2021.

An analysis of the data shows that among the 28 states, Rajasthan logged the highest number (27,848) of cases of economic offences last year, followed by Telangana (26,321) and Uttar Pradesh (22,409), while Karnataka was on the ninth spot in the list.

The rate of economic offence cases in Karnataka stood at 11.2 per cent per one lakh population while the rate of filing chargesheets in such cases was at 54.1 per cent.