AHMEDABAD: Between January 1, 2020, and May 15, 2023, Gujaratis made a total of 1.59 lakh applications related to cybercrime on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP) or helpline number 1930.
It comes to 5,585 applications per month on an average, 186 applications per day and average one application every 7.5 minutes!Gujarat was among the nine states that recorded more than 1 lakh applications related to cybercrime during the said period, indicated data by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).The data was reported recently in an NCRB response to an RTI application filed by Jeetendra Ghadge, a Girgaon-based activist.
Ghadge had sought details on the percentage of applications related to cybercrime converted into FIRs by police.
In all, the national ratio was found to be 1.9% as 43,022 FIRs were filed based on 22.57 lakh applications.
In comparison, Gujarat's applications-to-FIR ratio was found to be less than half at 0.8% - the state police recorded 1,233 FIRs out of the 1.59 lakh applications.Sunny Vaghela, CEO of a city-based cybersecurity firm, said that the post-Covid period is vastly different from the pre-Covid scenario.
"During and after lockdowns, we saw a steep rise in digital transactions.
It also gave the spammers and online frauds an opportunity to fleece the persons who were not digital savvy.
The scams ranging from fraud calls to get bank details to sextortion, cryptocurrency purchase and bank verification saw a major rise in 2021 and 2022.
Perhaps the data reflects that rise," he said.
The data also indicated that 3,115 complaints from Gujarat were related to sexually explicit content which resulted in six FIRs during the period.Ajit Rajian, DCP (cyber) of Ahmedabad Police, said that the past couple of years have seen a rise in both applications and FIRs compared to previous years.
'More cybercrime FIRs due to greater awareness' Ajit Rajian, DCP (cybercrime) of Ahmedabad police, said that the past couple of years have seen a rise in both applications and FIRs related to cybercrime compared to previous years.
"We see the rise in applications in the context of rise in awareness through various campaigns," he said.Senior police officials pointed out that if the amount lost in cyber frauds is small and if the fraud is committed from the gangs operating elsewhere, the chances of an FIR gets reduced.
They however claimed that even the applications are probed and several such applications are clubbed together when the same gang operating from such fraud hotspots in India is found to be involved."The fraudsters are constantly changing their modus operandi, and thus it's often the awareness that helps prevent such crimes.
Investigation in such cases is also different from the usual crimes where there is no jurisdiction - the person could be from the next area or can be operating from another country," said a senior official.