New Delhi: The Home Ministry on Wednesday said that over 5.8 lakhs SIM cards and 1,08,000 IMEIs have been blocked by the Government of India.
"Till date, more than 5.8 lakhs SIM cards and 1,08,000 IMEIs as reported by police authorities have been blocked by the Government of India," said Minister of State for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.
Stating that police and public order are State subjects as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India, Kumar said that the Centre supplements the initiatives of the States and Union Territories through advisories and financial assistance under various schemes for capacity building of their Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs).
"The States/UTs are primarily responsible for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes including cyber-crime through their Law Enforcement Agencies," he said.
Stating that the state of the art 'National Cyber Forensic Laboratory (Investigation)' has been established, as a part of the I4C at New Delhi to provide early-stage cyber forensic assistance to Investigating Officers (IOs) of State/UT Police, Kumar said.
"So far, National Cyber Forensics Laboratory (Investigation) has provided its services to State LEAs in around 10,200 cyber forensics like mobile forensics, memory forensics, CDR Analysis, etc. to help them in investigation of cases pertaining to cyber-crimes."
He informed that the 'Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System', under I4C, has been launched for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop the siphoning off funds by fraudsters.
"So far, a financial amount of more than Rs 2400 crore has been saved in more than 7.6 lakh complaints. A toll-free Helpline number '1930' has been operationalised to get assistance in lodging online cyber complaints," the minister said.
He informed that the Ministry of Home Affairs has provided financial assistance to the tune of Rs 131.60 crores under the 'Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC)’ Scheme, to the States/UTs for their capacity building such as setting up of cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories, hiring of junior cyber consultants and training of LEAs' personnel, public prosecutors and judicial officers.
"Cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories have been commissioned in 33 States/UTs and more than 24,600 LEA personnel, judicial officers and prosecutors have been provided training on cyber-crime awareness, investigation, forensics etc," the Minister said.
