Rajnath Singh asks police to gear up to tackle cyber crime

Says cyber crime is growing at an annual rate of 50%

Union home Minister Rajnath Singh today said that the role of police force in the country had undergone a sea change and asked it to come up with new strategies to counter the fast-evolving cyber crime, which had global ramifications.

Speaking at the passing out (Dikshant) parade of IPS officer trainees of the 66th regular recruits batch at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy in Hyderabad, Singh apprised the 143 officer trainees, including 15 foreign officers, of keeping with the changing times and context and pull up the socks towards developing better strategies for the prevention of cyber crime in the country.

“The home ministry was taking all steps necessary for the prevention of cyber crime, and very soon we will further strengthen the ‘Cyber Crime Prevention Strategy’. We are also confident that the police academy will be equally effective in giving due cognizance to the changing nature of crime in its training modules to its cadets, accordingly,” Singh said.

Citing the ministry’s cyber crime report for 2013-14, he said cyber crime was growing at an annual rate of 50 per cent and its incidence was high in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, while the northeastern states almost had no such cases reported during the period.

Singh said the ‘Dikshant Parade’ was being held in the academy after a gap of 10 years on Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s birth anniversary. “The credit of merging 562 princely states with India goes only to Sardar Patel,” he said.  

In her welcome address, police academy director Aruna Bahuguna said the academy had so far involved 1,000 senior officers as part of basic training in national security, global terrorism, cyber crime and missing children. The mid-career training programmes, mandatory for officers to attain competency, were conducted after a gap of two years at the academy, she added.  

Calling for greater representation for lady officers in the police to tackle the growing crime against women, Singh said he would look to see women officers constituting 50 per cent of the total pass-outs from the academy in future. The 66th regular recruits batch has 28 lady officers (roughly 21 per cent).

On the pending reforms and modernisation in the police force, he said the Centre would fast track them and act upon the  recommendations of Dharamveer Commission, which was set up in 1978.

Asking the police to “become futurist”, Singh said the police should work to project police stations as the “temples of justice”.

Earlier in the day, Singh flagged off ‘Run for Unity’ here to mark the birth anniversary of India’s first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. A large number of people, a majority of them BJP workers, participated in the run.