The superintendent of wireless police in Bengaluru, C.B. Ryshyanth, says that the number of calls placed on the helpline has increased by a factor of nearly twelve between 2022 and 2024.
On the 20th of August, Netra Kiran a private firm employee received spam calls from over thirty numbers in the space of an hour, making up thirty-five. All the calls were made by people who claimed to be from ‘Finance Recovery Department’ who harassed her to send money.
To speak out about the harassment she would call 112 after every few minutes. However, when the calls found themselves being transferred to cybercrime helpline they would get disconnected after one minute of silence.
“I had heard that you should report cybercrime within the first hour of its occurrence. So I tried calling the officers on 112 for that reason; it was my known emergency response number. But no one picked up and when I was redirected to cybercrime helpline (1930), I decided to contact police services instead. There one officer provided me a number through which I could reach officials dealing with cybercrimes, but when I called it, nobody answered,” she said.
There are many people like Ms Kiran who will dial 112 for reporting any form of cybercrime only not get a feedback at all. For many victims, this is usually step one as per police emphasis given on reporting crime within the golden hour.
Srinidhi D a businessman from Bengaluru clicked on a link which appeared as though it was genuinely linked to banks and lost Rs 10,000 .
I immediately dialed 112. When I was directed to the cybercrime extension, an announcement was made that all operators were busy. Ten minutes later,I tried again but got the same message and the call disconnected. After that, I went to the nearest police station to make a report about it. What is up with having an emergency number?
According to Kshama Mishra – Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Command Centre, this matter had been reported at the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) some months ago. “After we had raised these concerns, they took appropriate action regarding it; otherwise we will alert them again if need be,” she said.
Although this occurs on 112 calls, members of public have stated that even when they dial 1930 – the dedicated cybercrime helpline–it takes two or three attempts until they speak with an operator. This has been seen as a result of high number of calls made through the hotline by police officials.
The total number of calls received by helpline was given by C.B. Ryshyanth, Superintendent of Police (Wireless). It became nearly twelve times more within two years- from 2022 till 2024 when it received one hundred thirty thousand and three hundred thirty three calls in 2022 alone.
“4,67,258 calls were received by us in 2023, whereas up to July 31st this year we have taken already 7,39,299 calls and the number can be doubled by the end of the year.”
Increasingly more calls are coming in he continued as responders numbers also increase. Also, he said citizens should dial 1930 directly for cybercrime emergencies.
It was a technical hitch that they couldn’t understand why most of the time no response is given to emergency calls that are diverted from 112 to 1930 according to many officials.
