India recorded 27 lakh cyber fraud complaints last year, says Amit Shah

About 27 lakh complaints of cyber frauds were registered in the country in the last year and an increasing number of such cases are getting detected due to enhanced vigil, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said.

Shah also said that 99.5 per cent of police stations in the country are now connected with a central government network (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems or CCTNS) for investigation, data analytics, research, policy-making and providing services to citizens.

"About 27 lakh complaints of cyber frauds were registered in the country in the last year," he told PTI in an interview over the weekend.

The home minister said earlier there was no system to go after cyber frauds but now a toll-free number is available for the general public to register their complaints.

"We have made provisions for accounts to freeze. People started registering complaints and within seconds, accounts get frozen (when there is a case of cyber fraud)," he said.

Asked whether cyber fraud cases have gone up in the country, Shah said cases have not gone up but "frauds are getting detected now. We have also made available a toll-free number. That's why it is getting highlighted".

Due to the successful resolution of such complaints, people have been calling on that number, he said.

Last week, CEO of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) Rajesh Kumar said that Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and a few other South East Asian countries have become hubs of trans-national organised gangs which are increasingly carrying out cyber crimes like financial frauds, digital arrests and ATM card scamming in India.

The cyber fraud cases are mostly handled by the I4C, which is a wing under the cyber and information security division of the Union Home Ministry. It is mandated to tackle the burgeoning cyber crimes and attacks in the country in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.

The I4C has been "continuously monitoring and blocking" cybercrime infrastructure like Skype accounts, advertisements on Google and Meta, SMS headers, SIM cards, bank accounts etc, another official said.

Referring to the CCTNS, the home minister said the government has made efforts to bring all police stations under the network for the convenience of policing in the country.

"It is almost complete. About 99.5 per cent of police stations are now connected to the network. Just 0.5 per cent are left. That is because of connectivity issues. The police stations which are left out may be located in very interior areas, on a hilltop or in a jungle," he said.

The project was started in 2009. It aims to interlink all police stations under a common application software for investigation, data analytics, research, policy-making and providing citizen services such as reporting and tracking of complaints, requests for antecedent verifications by police etc.

The project is being implemented in close collaboration between states and the Centre.