UP to fortify cyber police stations to curb digital crimes

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / Jan 16, 2021

The Uttar Pradesh government will fortify the cyber police stations to curb new age digital and financial frauds by equipping cops with modern surveillance and investigation gadgets.

The UP Police department has been directed to upgrade the cyber labs, database management, forensic tools, data analysis software, data extraction software etc in the different cyber police stations.

According to UP additional chief secretary, home, Awanish Kumar Awasthi, about 243 cases had been registered in the 18 cyber police stations, of which the maximum cases pertained to Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), Lucknow, Moradabad and Varanasi regions.

Meanwhile, the police department has been allocated Rs 32 crore for the purchase of state-of-art gadgets and software solutions to modernise the cyber police stations. During the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly 900 accused were arrested under charges of cyber crimes during August-December 2020.

So far, more than 1,200 cops had been trained for posting in these cyber police stations and the process is still on. While cyber police stations were first set up in Lucknow and Noida, they were later also launched in each of the 16 other police ranges, taking the overall tally to 18 in UP.

Besides, the UP Police has constituted cyber cells at select police stations in the 75 districts to deal with petty cyber crimes and misuse of social media.