The National crime records bureau of India has
recently published the statistics related to various crimes in India. According
to this report Cyber-crimes have seen growth of @37% over year to year. In 2018
Cyber-crimes reported to police were 27248, whereas in 2019 the cyber-crimes
were 44735 and in year 2020 cyber-crimes were 50035. It can be deduced that cyber-crimes
saw huge growth of @ 65% in year 2019 whereas in year 2020 growth is only @15%.
So, in fact it can be said that Cyber-crimes have gone down by about 50% as
compared to its growth rate in last year. This is very appreciable and also a
sign that people are becoming more alert and more digital literate and sensible.
“A total of over 3.17 lakh cybercrimes and 5,771 FIRs
were registered online through a centralized portal www.cybercrime.gov.in in
the last 18 months -- a sizeable number of them in Maharashtra and Karnataka”,
the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday, 9’th March 2021 by Union Minister of
State for Home G Kishan Reddy. If 3.17 Lakhs crimes were reported on portal in
18 months ending March 2021 and NCRB report says 50035 crimes were registered
in 2020 then it needs serious churning and thinking regarding the huge
difference of reporting’s and actual registration of crimes. It also raises
other questions about ability of local police regarding registration of
cyber-crimes. In my opinion if police are discouraging the registration of
cyber-crimes, then the situation is very grim and needs urgent attention of the
concerned stake-holders.
“Over 2.9 lakh cyber security incidents related to
digital banking were reported in 2020”, Parliament was informed on Thursday,
4’th February 2021 by Minister
of State for Electronics and IT Sanjay Dhotre in a written reply to the Rajya
Sabha. As per the information reported to and tracked by Indian Computer
Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a total number of 1,59,761; 2,46,514 and
2,90,445 cyber security incidents pertaining to digital banking were reported
during 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively, minister said in a written reply to
the Rajya Sabha. These incidents included phishing attacks, network scanning
and probing, viruses and website hacking.
Now if we compare reports of NCRB and CERT and www.cybercrime.gov.in
portal, we will be confused about the actual number of cyber-crimes happening
in India. Whether to believe on NCRB or CERT or government’s cyber-crime
reporting becomes a more serious question and needs to be answered by
Government. And more significantly why three premier agencies in India are
coming up with completely contrasting statistics?
Now if we analyze the NCRB report we find that in UP
11097 cases were registered in 2020 followed by Karnataka (10741) and
Maharashtra (5496). The overall cyber-crime rate is 3.7% of total population
which is estimated to be 13533.7 Lakhs in entire India. So with respect to the
country's digital population amounting to approximately 624 million active
users as of February 2021, the total crimes in India as per NCRB is 50035,
which are very low as compared to other traditional crimes.
Another interesting statistics’ is about charge-sheet
ratio which says that it is over-all 47.5% in India with MP topping with 85.6%
and Assam at 19.4 % performing very poorly with Maharashtra at 27.1%. The
overall Indian scenario tells that in 14176 cases the chargesheet was filed by
the police and total 74142 offences are pending investigation till end of 2020.
As regards to matters disposed by the court, the
report raises more concerns because out of 25140 cases pending in courts across
India for trial, only 2692 i.e., 10% pending cases were disposed by the courts
in entire year. The only satisfying part is @85% conviction rate.
The statistics also highlights the Cyber crimes in 19
Metros of India.
In 2020 only 18657 crimes were registered in Metros
with Bangalore topping with 8893 followed by Hyderabad 2553 and Mumbai with
2433. Nagpur with 243 crimes is at 9th rank and surprisingly cyber
crimes in Nagpur exceed Pune which has recorded 238 crimes. But as compared to
last year Nagpur witnessed doble growth in cyber-crimes and Mumbai and Pune saw
marginal decline in cyber-crimes. In 2019 cyber-crimes in Nagpur were only 119.
Also, the pending charge-sheet percentage is 85% in Nagpur.
Being a keen observer of cyberspace since a decade,
these figures are totally unbelievable and does not project true scenario. The
Nagpur police has sanctioned strength of about 60-70 and presently the posted
staff may be @ 30-35 and if only 243 cyber-crimes are registered in Nagpur,
then does this number justify? The same is scenario across India where Police
machinery is trying to increase its capacity to fight cyber-crimes but NCRB
report paints totally contract dimension.
The only inference could be the NCRB statistics is
wrong and this should be dealt and debated very seriously.
Dr. Mahendra Limaye (09422109619)
Cyber Legal and Data Privacy Consultant
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