Haryana Police’s State Crime Branch has asked the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that to curtail the rising cybercrimes across the country, it would be better if the “jurisdiction of investigating a cyber fraud is shifted to the state of the offender rather than the state of the complainant”.
“Cybercriminals execute frauds with victims of distant states for easy escape from police authorities. Hence, jurisdiction area may be shifted from state of the victim to state of the accused for instant apprehension of the cybercriminals and their organised structure,” Haryana Police state crime branch’s cyber cell has suggested to MHA in a meeting held on February 6 under the chairmanship of special secretary (internal security), MHA.
Explaining the rationale behind such a suggestion, Additional Director General of Police (State Crime Branch, Haryana) O P Singh told The Indian Express that “for instance a criminal stationed in Haryana commits a cyber fraud with a person stationed in Kerala and the amount involved is approximately Rs 40,000-50,000. As per the existing rules, the case will be registered in Kerala, which is the jurisdiction of the complainant. Police start investigating the case and find the accused’s location is in Haryana. To identify the accused’s location and come all the way to Haryana and apprehend him involves a lot of time and finances. It becomes completely unfeasible for the police to go all the way to another state and catch the accused. Even the complainants back out. But, if the jurisdiction of investigating the case is shifted to the state of the offender, it would become easier for the personnel of the police station concerned to nab the accused and bust the entire gang of such offenders. In this case, Kerala Police can simply intimate Haryana Police and we can pick up these criminals and vice-versa”.
O P Singh added, “The suggestion was appreciated by the MHA. Of course, it is a new thing and would come with other challenges too. But, we got to devise a mechanism and inter-state coordination to deal with increasing cybercrimes. If the mechanisms are not put in place at the right time, the situation would get out of our hand.”
In the meeting, the Haryana Police also suggested to the MHA that “central guidelines may be issued to all the banks, financial intermediaries, etc., to refund amount put on hold through Citizen Financial Cyber Frauds Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS) module on police requests instead of asking court orders on every request as the state police is in receipt of approximately 1,000 calls and 200-300 complaints on a daily basis. It is not feasible to register case on each complaint. The learned courts do not issue refund orders to banks/intermediaries on basis of complaint without registration of FIR. Therefore, it is requested to issue necessary directions to all concerned at the end of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), MHA”. As per the current rules, a police officer not below the rank of an inspector can only investigate the cases pertaining to cybercrimes. “But, the number of inspector rank officers is also limited and they have to investigate other heinous crime cases as well. Thus, we made a suggestion to the MHA that – an amendment to the Information Technology Act to empower sub-inspector rank police officers to investigate cybercrime cases is necessary to improve the effectiveness of dealing with such crimes,” O P Singh told The Indian Express.
The state police force has also suggested to the MHA to issue instructions to the banks and other financial intermediaries to take timely actions on incidents reported by the police through CFCFRMS module.
In December 2022, the state crime branch had also raised a red flag on the Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System (AEPS) saying that cybercriminals were conducting financial frauds by siphoning off people’s vital data from the system and cloning the fingerprints available on documents on the government website. The cyber cell under the crime branch is currently investigating over 400 complaints pertaining to cyber frauds that are related to AEPS.
O P Singh had called it an “online fraud with silicon thumb” as criminals are quick in harnessing vulnerabilities.
“People need to be careful, although law enforcement agencies are nimble to keep up with them. AEPS fraud is the latest. During the course of investigation, fraudsters were found withdrawing money by forging biometric thumb impressions and abusing AEPS,” the ADGP told The Indian Express.
The state crime branch also advised people to deactivate the AEPS facility from their accounts if they are not using them regularly and avoid registering their fingerprints on any website. It has asked the public to immediately report any act or attempt of cybercrime to the number ‘1930’ within one hour of such an activity as it will help police stop the transfer of the defrauded fund to the cybercriminals’ accounts.
The investigators also asked the government departments of the state and intermediaries to conduct a safety audit and plug the loopholes that lead to the leakage of personal data such as thumb impressions and expose it to abuse by cybercriminals.
Explaining the modus operandi, O P Singh said that cybercriminals copy thumb impressions on butter paper from various websites to create duplicate silicon thumbs.
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Varinder BhatiaVarinder is Deputy Resident Editor, The Indian Express, Chandigarh. Wi… read more
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