Cybercrime hotlines in Bengaluru remain unreachable amid rising cases

The IT hub of India faces a strange kind of predicament. Despite increasing cybercrimes in Bengaluru, almost all the hotlines meant for reporting them are either switched off or just keep ringing.

Incidentally, according to the Bengaluru City Police website, India's first Cyber Crime Police Station was started in CID, Bengaluru way back in 2001.

Then in 2017, according to the information provided in its website, to tackle the growing number of cybercrimes, another cybercrime police station came up in the premises of the Police Commissioner's office in Bengaluru.

Eventually, the city got eight such police stations nine, if we include the Bengaluru Rural as well to register and investigate cases related to not only cybercrimes, but also economic and narcotic offences. They are called CEN (Cybercrimes, Economic and Narcotics Offences) Police Stations.

All these police stations, in theory, can be accessed round the clock via their hotline.

But when PTI called at different times, over a period of three days, except for South CEN police station, which is in the premises of Banashankari Police Station, and Whitefield CEN police station, located in Whitefield police station premises, none of the hotlines went through.

Social activist Dushyant Dubey, who has been highlighting the civic issues plaguing the city through his NGO St Brofus' Army, flagged the issue on his X page St Brofus, last week.

"It came to our notice when a victim was asked to call the CEN Police Station, East Division, by the Cybercrime Department. The provided number did not work. So, we started digging," Dave said to PTI.

When he realised that it was not a one-off issue, Dave said he dug out the list of phone numbers that are available to the public to report a crime, sent as reply to his RTI request (HMBUH/R/2024/60754) to the Police Commissioner's office on October 18, and started calling CEN hotlines randomly.

"We have been calling on and off. We even made a video of calling the CEN Police Station, East Division, which triggered this entire exercise, to show that these numbers exist only on paper," said Dave.

Dave posted the video on X account with the accompanying message: "I don't understand how a police officer can simply switch off the hotline phone at 3.51 pm on a working day when citizens need them the most."  But, in spite of tagging officials concerned from Bengaluru City Police, he has not received any response so far, said Dave.

Dave has also dug out about four X posts on the issue where the users have ranted against their inability to get through to CEN police station East Division hotline numbers. He has posted the screen shots of these complaints on his X account.

"All these people are being directed to call this specific number: 9449295760. It appears that the number is notorious for not being helpful," said Dave.

Meanwhile, an Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of cybercrime at South CEN Police Station, who did pick up the call, said on an average he receives about five complaints a day.

"We only encourage offences that involve Rs 2 lakh and above to come to us. Anything less than that, we ask them to register the complaint with the local station," he said.

Police officer on special duty, who answered the Whitefield CEN hotline number, simply asked us to come to the police station for any further assistance.

Despite many attempts, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Cybercrime and Narcotics, which according to the information available on public domain is Sudheer Kumar Reddy, cannot be reached as his listed phone number too is unanswered by him.