A Guide to understand Cyber Crime

A Guide to understand Cyber Crime — Advocate Bindu Dubey

Blessing in disguise!!

Social Media platforms were considered to be blessing due to their capability to reach many people without any need of travelling places. Life has become easier as social media has helped people for communication, sharing, and work in collaboration.

There is always a flip side to everything and YES social media too is not an exception. Increase in social media popularity and ease of access has given rise to online harassment as well. As per various reports submitted by multiple agencies and firms, almost 80% of people face online harassment in some or the other form of online frauds like cyber threat, cyber bulling, cyber stalking, etc. Metros like Mumbai and New Delhi saw a steep rise in such cyber cases. You can get help of qualified and experienced lawyers for all your criminal and civil matters to handle your case under cyber crime acts.

What is harassment?

The term harassment cannot be literally defined as such because matter of pleasure for one person can be harassment to another person. Apart from a few below mentioned points, it also includes sending offensive messages or any communication to any person with an intention of causing him/her annoyance, insult and criminal intimidation. Harassment to a person can be by any means it can be because of the direct act of some person or indirect too. It is bit subjective too.

There are various elements that can fall under harassment:

- Hacking website of a brand or a person

- Publishing material or content with an intent to defame or humiliate

- Sexual or derogatory remarks

- Threats and Online Defamation

- Ganging up against victim ridiculing him/her on online platform

It is important to understand various types of online harassment:

1. Cyber Harassment: Cyber harassment is done by means of repeatedly threatening using internet as a medium with the ultimate intent to threaten, humiliate and intimidate any one online.

2. Cyber Stalking: It is means of harassing someone by extracting his/her information from various online sources with the ultimate intention of humiliating and it may be also followed by other malicious or threatening behavior.

3. Cyber Bullying: It is usually a threat or harassment done by a minor to a minor with the help of online medium e.g. can be social media channels.

What are the best ways to deal with such cases?

Do not commit crime

If you fall for such online frauds / crimes, don’t worry much. You can easily reach out to a nearest Police Station or Cyber Crime Cell in your area and file a complaint against the person. In some states there is also provision to file online case if you are unable to reach the nearest police station in case of some emergency. You can dial a local police station number in case it seems difficult for you to come out and file a case if someone is stalking you.

For such cyber-crimes, usually you will get an immediate attention from the personnel of cyber-cell who are not only trained to understand your matter in detail technically but also are empowered to file a complaint or FIR against the accused.

They have all the powers to use under IT Act that was passed initially in year 2000 and amended in 2008 taking care of almost all the aspects of online harassment. Provisions under IT Act are compoundable with the IPC Acts if crime is very serious in nature. These crimes are punishable upto 3 years imprisonment along with fine amount under IT law.

What are the important Steps that need to be taken in such cases?

Keep Calm: Don’t fall for any kind of trap. It is evident that you would like to take some sort of action against a person harassing you online but keep your patience intact before you take any action. Any action taken by you should be in consultation of your lawyer so take some time before you respond in the heat of the moment.

Approach Cyber Cell: To deal with such increasing online harassments, separate units are created known as Cyber Cells under the criminal investigation department of the Police across the country. This has helped in giving priority to such cases to resolve the issue at the earliest.

Take Legal Help: You should try to take help of a well-informed lawyer for filing a case under legal provisions of IT Act. You should also report to the online forum and local authorities for further actions. Take careful and well informed steps that can lead you in right direction.

File a Case: Let your lawyer use his/her experience while deciding sections to be added while filing a case after hearing out you completely. Your lawyer can understand the complete scenario and make the investigation officer understand entire story from the legal perspective so that no stone is unturned for getting you the desired justice for your case.

Accumulate Evidence: Keep all your evidences with you and make a separate file for the same. Accumulate all the small documents that are required to make your evidence file strong. Let the lawyer decide and use the document as evidence wherever it is a right fit. These evidences can be very well used by your lawyer while the legal proceedings in the court for proving your claim.

Don’t just be a silent Victim of such online fraudsters. If someone has raised some issue online in public or trying to frame with some false allegation, give yourself time to prepare the grounds and then file the case. You can also demand compensation for the harassment and online defamation including the losses.

In order to have a proper bifurcation of the cases, you need to understand things at granule level. You have a chance of filing Criminal or civil or both case against the person. An experienced lawyer can guide you well and take the case ahead as per your expectation.

Adv Bindu Dubey & Associates can help you fight your case and get the desired justice to you. In case you need any help in such cases feel free to email at advbindudubey@gmail.com

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade