Kathmandu: The Metropolitan Crime Division of Nepal Police received 926 complaints relating to cyber crime to date in the current fiscal year. The cyber crimes are the criminal activities carried out with the use of computers and internet.

With the increasing use of the internet technology and social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter, and Viber, the cases of the cyber crime are on the rise of late. According to the Division Spokesperson and Superintendent of Police Narendra Prasad Upreti, fraudsters are misusing the social networking sites as a means of making illegal money. They make a contact with their possible victims via internet with ‘false’ information that they (victims) won a lottery or are getting free gift hampers from abroad and for that they have to send a certain amount to complete a process.

It is found that people have been deceived of millions of rupees from such fraudsters.

The record shows that the more number of youths than the people of other age groups are found involved in the cyber crime. Many of them belong to 15-25 age group. Division Chief and Senior Superintendent of Police Dheeraj Pratap Singh, use of Facebook accounts in other’s names, hacking twitter accounts, sending of unnecessary and suggestive texts, phishing, misuse of personal information are some forms of cyber crimes which take place through digital devices including computers, tablets and smart phones connected to the internet, the network of the networks. Of the registered cases, prosecutions have begun in only 40 cases.

He insisted on the need of education from the school level on the safe use of internet to control cyber crimes. Some people are unknowingly involved in cyber crime as they get suggestions to visit the prescribed link or like the posted link or download such materials. The Nepal Police deals with the case relating to cyber crime under the Electronic Transactions Act 2008 which puts the time limitation to file the first information report regard with the violation of this Act with 35 days.

The ETA recommends a fine not exceeding 100 thousands or jail sentence up to five years or both as punishment to a guilty convicted in the cyber crime.

The study of the Division shows that homelessness, school/college dropout, and suicide have increased in the society due to consequences of cyber crime. Recently, the Nepal Police has established a cyber bureau to deal with the growing cases of cyber crime. RSS