Bhubaneswar, Sept. 26: Taking note of the rise in cases of cyber crime against the women in the state, police have decided to come up with a dedicated cyber police station for them.

The cops have sent a proposal to the Centre through the state government to set up the cyber police station under the Nirbhaya scheme. Under the scheme, the Centre incurs 60 per cent of the cost of a project and the rest is borne by the state government.

"We have proposed a dedicated cyber police station for women to ensure their safety. Half of the staff of the proposed police station would be women," said police commissioner Y.B. Khurania.

The police said women mostly registered complaints of cheating by impersonation and harassment on social networking sites. On August 10, Saheed Nagar police had arrested a 27-year-old youth for stalking an engineering student of the city.

The youth, identified as Mohammad Rehan, had been stalking the girl for the past month on the Internet. The accused had also sent indecent text messages to the girl by creating multiple accounts on a social networking website.

Of late, many girls have alleged that cyber criminals morphed their photographs on WhatsApp and Facebook. According to official statistics, 56 cases of cyber crime were registered in 2015 in Bhubaneswar, while only 14 such registered cases were registered in 2014.

A police official said: "Though police stations register cases of cyber crime, the investigation process is slow as the officials are engaged with other assignments as well."

Experts feel women often become soft targets of cyber crimes. "Most of the time, these criminals pretend to be NRIs to lure girls. There are instances in which women are promised marriage for money. The police must be technically updated to crack such cyber crimes," said an IT professional Javed Anwar.

Himadri Tanaya, who is a teacher, said: "At times the victims are extremely reluctant to share their problems with male police officials. The comfort level of women with female officials will obviously be better. Besides, they will not be required to visit police stations to lodge their complaints."

This apart, the police have also proposed to install 3,000 closed circuit television cameras (CCTVs) in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar under the Nirbhaya scheme. According to the proposal, CCTVs would be installed at 300 locations at educational institutions, women's hostels, bus stands, shopping malls and religious places.