A police officer at cyber crime police station in Dehradun. (Vinay Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

With the number of cyber crimes going up sharply in the state, Uttarakhand police has decided to set up dedicated cyber cells in all districts for speedy investigation of online crimes.

From 87 cases in 2015, cyber crimes went up to 103 cases in 2016 while over 280 cases have already been reported this year. At present, Uttarakhand has only one cyber police station in Dehradun.

A senior police officer said there was a massive jump in cyber crime cases over the past two-three years. “So dedicated cells are now being planned at the district level to ensure focused attention on cyber related crimes as well as speedy investigation,” Inspector General of Police (law and order) Deepam Seth told Hindustan Times.

“At present, all districts are referring their matters for technical support to the cyber crime police station (located in Dehradun). Since time is of essence in investigation of cyber crimes, once these cells are set up at the district level, response time for initial fieldwork will be significantly reduced.”

The cells will have experts exclusively working on cyber related crimes. The specialized units will also coordinate to promptly rope in expertise from other agencies, cyber specialists and ethical hackers whenever required. “If there are trained people in the districts who can initiate the investigations quickly, then any further technical support can be provided by the cyber crime police station later,” Seth said.

The workforce will include police personnel from the special operations group working in all 13 districts and those from social media monitoring cells at the range level among others. The deployment is likely to be worked out in the next 10 days with staff strength in proportion to the number of cyber crimes reported from each district.

Though police officials are working on cyber crimes in every district, but it is not done in “any formalised kind of an arrangement so far”. Key resource persons will now be brought together in the form of a dedicated cyber crime cell under the district police head’s office, which will provide all the technical and logistics support for any cyber crime reported in that district.