Every click you make

The pensioners paradise of Pune too has slowly woken up to cyber sleaze. It began with the implication of a middle-class management consultant Mohan Kulkarni, 55. A divorcee, Kulkarni planted webcams in the rooms of his paying guests. All it took was a cable, a webcam, a video-switcher, a computer and a television set.

It was only after a financial dispute with their landlord 8212; it forced them to go to the police 8212; did these girls and the police stumble upon Kulkarni8217;s camera tricks. A police raid detected webcams popping out from unimaginable places like the starter of a tubelight in the room.

Kulkarni was charged with publishing obscene information in electronic form under section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Besides, section 294 and 509 of the Indian Penal Code was also invoked. But what could weaken the case against him is that no video recordings of his paying guests were found in the stock that was seized from his house.

Close on the heels of the Kulkarni incident, civil contractor Dinesh Bapat was arrested by the Pune police for raping an acquaintance and recording it.

Technology is also the new arbitrator of disputes. Recently 42-year-old businessmen Makarand Mahajani was arrested for sending abusive messages to his estranged business partner Prakash Deshpande. The Pune police implicated Mahajani under section 67 of the IT Act.

Sanjay Jadhav, assistant commissioner of police crime entrusted with the cyber crime cell, says the spate of recent incidents have proved that Pune8217;s crime pattern is undergoing a metamorphosis. 8216;8216;The information deluge has changed morality.8217;8217;

IN the cramped Timirany township of Harda district, about 200 km from Bhopal, when a police team swooped down on a coaching class last month, they discovered that a web camera with a few computers was all that 35-year-old teacher Girish Kumar needed to shoot himself with a few of his girl students without their knowledge. Within hours of the late night raid, it became clear that the accused had transferred the recorded acts onto CDs and sold them to some 8216;interested buyers8217;.

The Indore police too recently recovered the CD of a 20-year-old girl in some video parlours. But despite repeated attempts, the girl8217;s parents refused to file a complaint and cooperate with the police.

And it8217;s not just teenaged girls who have been targetted. Two shopkeepers in Khargone were arrested by the police after they were found to have bugged the bedroom of a rival shopkeeper.

THE police, more familiar with blood and gore crimes, is finding these cyber transgressions tough to handle. Pune8217;s ACP crime Sanjay Jadhav says the Pune police is making a sincere attempt to train its men in the nuances of cyber crimes. 8216;8216;We made a beginning by training a dozen officers. The comfort level with handling cyber crimes will percolate lower down but will take time,8217;8217; says Jadhav who has spent many hours with IT experts.

Rohas Nagpal, president of the Pune-based Asian School of Cyber Laws which trains corporates and government authorities, feels the police has adequate powers to detain people accused of misusing technology.

8216;8216;The Indian Evidence Act has been amended to include digital evidence for prosecution. The IT Act itself is very strong,8217;8217; says Nagpal. For example, the first conviction under section 67 of IT Act, 2000, can send an accused to five years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 1 lakh. Subsequent aberrations can attract ten years jail and a fine of Rs 2 lakh.

In Madhya Pradesh8217;s Timirany town though, the SP sought the intervention of the Collector to issue accused Girish Kumar8217;s detention under the National Security Act NSA. 8216;8216;It is nothing but a criminal act. But since there are no harsh provisions in the IPC we had to book him under the NSA and throw him behind bars,8217;8217; says SP Sharma.

UTTAR Pradesh, meanwhile, decided the best defence was offence. In the new year has come a harsh government order: cubicles in 8,000 cyber cafes across the state are to be dismantled and Rs 2 lakh fine along with ten years in jail for offenders caught watching porn in cyber cafes. 8216;8216;These closed cabins were a breeding ground for pornographic cyber crimes. If privacy is not available in such cafes, exchange of pornographic material too will taper off,8217;8217; thundered UP8217;s minister for information technology and electronics Veerendra Singh.

His order was preceded by raids in Agra8217;s cyber cafes on then DGP V K B Nair8217;s orders who thought 8216;8216; students across the state were watching porn instead of attending classes.8217;8217;

A day later, the police went hunting in Aligarh but their alleged harassment of girls has come under severe criticism. Lucknow too has seen raids in the past fortnight. 8216;8216;Two cyber cafes in Lucknow8217;s Krishnanagar area had been converted into porn centres,8217;8217; says Shachi Ghildiyal, Circle Officer Alambagh.

Meanwhile, these are anxious times for cyber cafe owners. Their business has already dipped. 8216;8216;The latest order violates a customer8217;s right to privacy. Those sending business mails, for instance, don8217;t want to send them in public gaze,8217;8217; says the UP Cyber Cafe Owners Association.

But until a new scandal comes along, the police8217;s prying eyes are not likely to shift focus.

Aman Sharma in Lucknow, Devraj Dasgupta in Pune and Rohit Bhan in Bhopal