Rachakonda cops go offline to tackle cybercrimes

Rachakonda Police form special teams to directly interact with people and educate them on various crimes.

With the number of cybercrime cases on the rise, the Rachakonda Police is tweaking its approach. Hitherto, the Rachakonda Cyber Cell and the Information Technology wing, have been quite active on social media sharing information about cyber frauds, new modus operandi adopted by offenders and tips to social media users to not fall prey to cybercrooks.

However, Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh M Bhagwat, pointing out that awareness on social media platforms would be confined only to tech savvy persons and youngsters, said many who were not active online too were falling prey and were being targeted, including people from rural backgrounds.

“Cybercrime is the future crime. While we continue our efforts to create awareness on the social media platforms, we will make our approach more aggressive from now. We will focus on those outside social media as well, since a majority of them too are becoming victims now,” Bhagwat said.

“We will now have special teams working



on the ground to directly interact with people and educate them on various cybercrimes,” he said. Officials said while the overall crime rate in Rachakonda Police Commissionerate was seeing a dip every year, cybercrimes were increasing steadily. Fraudsters were looting people using novel ideas.

Like the SHE teams formed for the safety and security of women, Cybercrime teams will now focus on educating citizens regarding the different types of cybercrimes. The Commissioner has released posters that will be displayed at public places and on transport vehicles including buses, auto-rickshaws and cabs.

The primary focus of these teams will be educating students and youngsters by organising awareness programmes at educational institutions. “We observed that most of them lack awareness and end up being victims. We have listed out some forms of cybercrimes including job fraud and matrimonial fraud. Preventive measures too have been given. We request the public to follow these tips and save themselves from being cheated by cyber crooks and other fraudsters,” Bhagwat said.