BABA UMAR
How many times do we log on to the net and share happily our information with others? Never ever suspecting of any foul play. Even sometimes we casually logout from our email account without checking whether we logged out successfully or not.
Meet Feroze Ahmed, State Project Manager, Confederation of Voluntary Associations (COVA), several months back he got a mail from Google.inc directing him to send his email ID along with the password and other credentials. He mailed the details to the sender without consulting anybody. And he was in for nightmare. His password got hacked and the hacker now had full control over his e-mail ID.Taking advantage from his mail the hacker misinformed his acquaintances that he has gone to Nigeria where he lost his bag and money. The hacker impersonating one Ahmed sought $3,400 from all the friends and pledged to pay them back once he returns to Kashmir.The next day, Ahmed got a call from one of his colleagues from Hyderabad verifying when he had gone to Nigeria. His friend also mailed him the letter seeking money to be deposited in some bank account. Ahmed got suspicious and checked his email. Fortunately he had second email account too and from that mail he mailed to one and all about the fraud and the hacking of his official mail address. He had saved himself and his friends from getting duped, but he didn’t inform police about the incident. “They (Police) don’t have a cyber crime cell here in Kashmir,” he says. “It would have been a futile exercise to report in the police station.”In Kashmir, there has been a sudden increase in the cyber crimes since the escalating use of computers and internet. Cyber sins like making fake certificates, pirated DVD’s, password thefts of credit and debit cards, and pornography were reported several times in the past. Even there has been a case last year when hackers tricked a medico by hacking his password and the state police looked helplessly. Or when some miscreants morphed pictures of an Orkutain and posted the fake profile on the net. “We have a cyber crime cell here but it is not fully functional,” confesses a Srinagar Crime Branch official who wished not to be named as he was not authorised for any attribution. “Every case is inspected by the State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB), Jammu,” the official says.He says that the Jammu Crime Branch has got all the high-tech machinery and softwares and hence they are able to investigate such crimes in the area. Another official who wished not to be named said that the department is lacking the cyber crime related facilities and infrastructure. He said, in the past the higher officials have been making pledges to upgrade the department with latest gadgetry, but so far nothing substantial came forth.“We don’t have the hard disk mappers, recovery softwares and other necessary equipments,” he says.Even experts say that such a cell is essential in Srinagar too as the internet and computer usage has been on surge. They say that every district should have a cyber crime related cell.“Local police doesn’t have the know-how on cyber crimes, so there is obviously an urgent need for a high-tech cyber cops here in Kashmir,” says Muheet Ahmad, a software engineer working in the University of Kashmir. “Cyber crimes are those unlawful acts wherein computer is a tool or target or both. So it is necessary to have techno’s in the police department and total up-gradation of the present cyber crime cell in the city.”Some sections also fear the helplessness of the police due to the non applicability of Indian Penal Code here in the State and the cyber laws that fall under Information Technology ACT 2000 of India. However, Mohammed Ashraf, Additional Secretary Law, says that the IT acts are applicable anywhere in India including the state of Jammu and Kashmir. “Yes all the cyber laws are valid in the State,” the official says.It is unbelievable that valley has got cyber boom but without any law to check the menace and stop the cyber crime. However one thing that remains certain is that till a crime of high magnitude happens via cyber no one will bother to ask the police why they don’t have effective and working cyber law
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