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Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi has recently cautioned the citizens about the digital-arrest scam, in an attempt to prevent citizens from being duped by cyber fraudsters, who have managed to loot a whopping INR 120 crore in just four months. Disturbed by the development, the prime minister, in his latest ‘Man ki Baat’ broadcast, has asked the people to remain vigilant against such cybercrimes, saying that ‘there is nothing like digital arrest in our law; this is just fraud, deceit, lies, a gang of criminals and those who are doing this are enemies of society’. This may prevent many from falling victim to the digital arrest scam, but the fact the remains that cybercrime has been on the rise in India for the last couple of years. As per the information received from National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), a portal to lodge cybercrime complaints, nearly 16 lakh complaints were filed in 2023, against 9.5 lakh in 2022, which was double the number registered in 2021. As many as 7,47,000 (7.47 lakh) complaints were received in the first four months of this year itself, indicating that it could surpass previous years’ records if the authorities fail to rein in the fraudsters. Cyber criminals are adopting various tactics to fool people. Sometimes, they loot the people in the name of making new investments and trading through which the scammers have pocketed about INR 1,420 crore in the first four months of this year. Friendship App is another tool to hoodwink people.
This clearly indicates that cybercrimes are on the rise in the country, which calls for harsh measures against the offenders to prevent people from falling victim to such frauds. A strong cyber force, which can effectively deal with such crimes, is the need of the hour. It may be mentioned that as the world progresses, cyber criminals are also changing the modus operandi to loot the people, using modern technology to defraud people off their hard-earned money. In the case of the ‘digital arrest’ scam, these criminals produce visuals of a police station or a government office where the people are in uniform and make them listen the sound of police sirens to convince the targeted persons that they are real law enforcers; they are asked to be under 24X7 surveillance until they pay a hefty sum. Many have succumbed to this trick and ended up losing their hard-earned money to fraudsters. The PM recently made a mention of this fraud in his ‘Maan ki Baat’ programme as it is widespread. Awareness will help curb this scam, but the government has to take on these criminals on a war-footing as they are not only robbing the people, but also weakening the country’s economy.