NCRB report 2015: Religious persons, ‘sexual freaks’, relatives held for cyber crime

The cyber crimes for which they were arrested include financial frauds, data theft, posting of obscene pictures, hacking into someone’s online account, derogatory posts and posts hurting religious sentiments or inciting communal violence.

Of the over 8,000 people arrested in 11, 592 cyber crime cases last year, almost 20 per cent were business competitors, while about 15 per cent were neighbours, friends or relatives of the victim. Hackers and computer geeks were common accused too. Students, 800 of whom were arrested for cyber crimes, made up another big group of accused.

Interestingly, as many as 143 “religious leaders” were arrested for cyber crimes last year. These included 79 from Uttar Pradesh (UP) alone. Maharashtra accounted for almost 30 per cent of such cyber criminals, with 42 arrests. Most cyber offences by “political persons” were reported in Maharashtra (7) and UP (5).

Most “business competitors” targeted their rivals in the cyber space in Bihar. The state may be struggling with optical fibre connectivity, but it accounted for 80 per cent of such accused with 1,278 arrests.

UP, Maharashtra and Assam accounted for maximum arrests of neighbours, friends and relatives with 289, 169 and 173 arrests, respectively. The most number of students arrested for cyber crimes were in UP (318) followed by Andhra Pradesh (156).

Maharashtra also saw the maximum arrests of “sexual freaks” (103) followed by Assam (78). Over 60 per cent of “cyber terrorists” were nabbed from Telangana (21) and UP(12).

Four foreign nationals were also arrested in cyber crime cases.

Delhi reported one of the lowest cyber crime arrests. In 177 cases, Delhi police arrested 53 people in 2015. The maximum cyber crime cases were registered in UP (2208) and Maharashtra (2195).

Cyber crime cases saw a raise of 20.5 per cent from 2014. Odisha witnessed the sharpest rise at 211 per cent.