Bengaluru Police responded to the claims of not being responsive to cyber crime complaint calls and said that there is only one toll-free number for the entire country to report the cyber-crime. The department said that the phone numbers that are being circulated as helpline numbers belong to a few officers of Bengaluru Police.
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In a statement, Bengaluru Police said, "It has been reported in certain sections of the media that calls are not being answered or getting connected to certain helpline numbers provided for cybercrime police stations. On verification it is found that these numbers are primarily designated for official use by officers for investigation assistance and other routine work. They are not dedicated helpline numbers for reporting cybercrimes. The sole All India toll free helpline number for reporting cybercrimes is 1930."
The Bengaluru police further urged people to use the national helpline number for any cyber-crime related issues. "The public is requested to use this number exclusively for reporting any cybercrime-related issues," the note further said.
According to a report in PTI, 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," he said to PTI.
{{/usCountry}}According to a report in PTI, 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," he said to PTI.
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Dubey further said that 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," he further told the news agency.
However, many people on social media highlighted the issue and requested police to put out a cyber complaint number dedicated to Bengaluru. The tech-capital has been facing a high rate of cyber crimes and people are losing crores of money to the fraudsters.