BENGALURU: With over 7,000 cases pending at the Bengaluru cybercrime police station, it perhaps comes as no surprise that in 2018, only 124 arrests were made in 69 cases in the city.

According to senior police officials, the arrests made so far are related to copyright cases as well as cybercrime related to politics.

However, the vast amount of pending cases are unlikely to see a fast solution as the department remains understaffed.

Though the city will soon receive eight dedicated stations for Cyber, Economic and Narcotics offences (CEN), it remains to be seen if these will be staffed adequately. Currently, every police station has a team to focus on cybercrime cases but according to experts, hiring expert staff is the only way forward.

According to lawyer Mohammed Shakeeb, posting to the cyber crime cell is often seen by policemen as being side-lined if not demoted— so, the motivation levels in these units are low.

“Shoddy investigation leads to poor evidence gathering and investigation officer’s lack of technical expertise leads to defective chargesheets,” he said. Shakeeb is also of the opinion that full-time tech experts are the need of the hour in these cyber crime cells.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), Girish S said, “Quality and speed of investigation will go up manifold and inspectors will be able to give more time per case. Otherwise, there is a tendency to push it under the carpet.”

He further explained that in each division, anyone police inspector of a police station will be the Station House Officer (SHO) for the new CEN police stations.

“This will be the temporary system until separate vacancies are created as there are financial implications. Training will be provided before posting,” Girish said.

Earlier T Suneel Kumar, Police Commissioner, had said that each of the eight divisions in the city will be headed by an SP-rank officer and is equivalent to a district.

Personnel who will be posted to these stations will be trained at the Centre for Cybercrime Investigation Training and Research in the CID which will be sponsored by an IT company (Infosys).