Cops attend workshop on prevention of bank frauds. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 17: The city police in collaboration with a private bank have taken the initiative to equip policemen with the advanced technology to tackle with cyber crimes such as bank frauds.

The city police last week had organised a workshop in association with a bank on methods to prevent bank frauds and investigate such crimes from different angles. The police are yet to equip themselves properly to deal with cyber crimes as they lack both knowledge and technology in this regard.

The police commissioner B. K. Sharma said the officers being under equipped in these matters often faced problems when dealing with internet and digital crimes.

“These workshops will definitely help our police officers to deal with such cases. If they are better equipped they won’t hesitate to take up such cases,” said Sharma.

Sharma said around 20 per cent of the cheating cases being reported in the area within the limits of the city police deal with bank frauds such as ATM card frauds, internet banking frauds and similar other crimes.

Since the number of such cases is bound to go up in the coming days policemen would better be equipped with knowledge of the subject and the required technology.

“I have got many such cases and as these things need professional knowledge, I have been taking the help of banks. The reason is that they have a proper internal investigation system and they provide us required information,” said a police officer in the capital city.

“The police have power in such matters but they do not have the required knowledge, whereas we have the knowledge but not the power. When our consumers get involved in cases like these we would want to be sure that police have the requisite knowledge. Through these workshops with the law enforcement agencies we provide them the knowledge they need in such cases,” said a top executive of the bank involved in the initiative.

Policemen in the rank of sub inspectors to the assistant commissioners of police took part in the programme.

Sources said that currently the city police have a small unit to deal with cyber crime cases but it would be expanded into a full-fledged one this year. The policemen would also be supposed to have working knowledge of computer and internet.