Bhubaneswar: Cyber crimes in the state increased by 159 per cent in 2017 as compared to 2016, a release of the state crime branch revealed on Thursday.

In 2017, police registered 824 cyber crime cases as against 317 in 2016. However, even among them, the registration of 184 cases related to circulation of nude photographs and videos emerged as the major concern for the police.

According to official reco-rds, 195 accused were arrested in connection with cyber crimes in 2017, while the number of accused nabbed in 2016 stood at 99.

In 2017, the police registered 265 cases related to ATM frauds and another 206 cases of online frauds.

Additional director general of police (crime branch), Santosh Kumar Upadhyay said that free registration of cases related to cyber crimes was one of the factors behind the increase in recorded cases.

"We were also able to arrest more accused involved in such cases in 2017 due to free registration of such cases. We have been upgrading the existing mechanism to deal with cyber crimes. We have also set up a cyber forensic lab at the State Forensic Science Laboratory to deal with such crimes," said Upadhyay.

The police said that cyber crimes - such as cyber stalking, cyber defamation and circulation of pornographic videos featuring girls - have become rampant in the state.

The police also said that cyber trafficking has emerged as a new crime against women in cyber space.

"In cyber trafficking, the accused gets closer to young girls by impersonating themselves as women and girls. Taking the benefit of loneliness and the victims, they convince them to share their nude pictures and later use those to force them in immoral activities," said a police officer.

"The guilt of sharing such images on their own plays on their mind and the victims always apprehend getting victimised again as the videos and photographs roam in the cyber space," said the officer.