Thiruvananthapuram: The strength of women personnel in the 19 cyber police stations in Kerala will be increased to five each from the present two.

Besides cases of financial fraud, these stations also handle complaints lodged by women. The move to appoint more female officers has been made considering the reluctance of women in approaching the police with complaints of recording and circulating sleaze videos.

Women hesitate to approach the cyber police considering male officers would be watching such videos. Though cyber police stations have one or two female officers now, they are mostly assigned to record statements.

The Kerala police have been ahead of other States in modernising technology that aids in probing cases. The State Budget had earmarked Rs 4.5 crore for this purpose last year, besides allocating another Rs 14 crore for the cyber sector. ADGP (headquarters) Manoj Abraham is coordinating the modernisation drive.

Cybercrime Coordination Centre
Kerala has launched a unit of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre in the State with ADGP Yogesh Gupta as its nodal officer. The centre was launched based on a central Home Department directive to all States.

The centres will provide information on all cybercrimes. Investigators across the country will benefit from the coordination centres since they could get information on similar crimes as the one they are probing.

The nodal officer will compile all cybercrimes reported in the State and pass on their details to the central Home Department.