According to the recent NCRB data on cyber crimes released, Bangalore is reported to be the leading metro with 675 cases being registered under ITA 2008.
Hyderabad stood second with 386 cases followed by Jaipur and Lucknow.
We must however not read too much into this city leadership. This only indicates that Police in Bangalore and Hyderabad are more aware of the Cyber Crimes and hence there will always be more cases filed here under ITA 2008.
Detailed report is available on NCRB site here:
The number of cases under different sections on an all India basis are as follows.
| Section | Cases pending from previous year | Cases reported during the year |
| Sec 65 | 26 | 89 |
| Sec 66 | – | – |
| Sec 66A | 1196 | 4192 |
| Sec 66B | 31 | 82 |
| Sec 66C | 255 | 784 |
| Sec 66D | 245 | 428 |
| Se 66E | 26 | 62 |
| Sec 66F | 1 | 5 |
| Sec 67 | – | – |
| Sec 67A | 196 | 749 |
| Sec 67B | 4 | 5 |
| Sec 67C | 3 | 4 |
| Sec 68 | 1 | 3 |
| Sec 69 | 0 | 2 |
| Sec 69A | 0 | 1 |
| Sec 69B | 0 | 0 |
| Sec 70 | 0 | 0 |
| Sec 71 | 1 | 5 |
| Sec 72 | 6 | 16 |
| Sec 72A | 0 | 2 |
| Sec 73 | 0 | 0 |
| Sec 74 | 12 | 3 |
| Others | 243 | 769 |
| Total | 2246 | 7201 |
It is interesting to observe the motives of criminals as recorded by the Police in the above cases. 2363 cases booked during the year represented financial greed or extortion or fraud as motives. However the value of money involved is not known. Around 808 cases appeared to be related to defamation.
If we take a deeper look at the way the reported offences have been classified, it is clear that even after 15 years of ITA 2000 and 7 years of ITA 2008, the Police are yet to understand the purpose of different sections and keep booking offences under wrong sections.
I am sure that Police think Section 67C is an obscenity related offence. They may not be able to distinguish Section 66 from Sec 66A.
While statistics are very important for planning for future, I hope NCRB ensures that Police are trained to classify crimes properly. Most of the cases, Police are mislead by the PPs and the errors in classification may therefore be attributed to lack of understanding of ITA 2008 by PPs. I hope state governments do address this issue seriously.
Naavi
