Addicted to Orkut? or MySpace instead? There is danger ahead. As the Pune is poised to become a Cyber City, it is also home to most crimes targeted against women in the cyber world. The commonest of all the abuses are posting duplicate or bogus profiles on the social networking sites causing harassment to women.

The fact has been revealed by experts in the field and also police records. According to Vishal Kumar, legal consultant with city based Asian School of Cyber Laws, "This is the most common of cyber crimes found in Pune. Unfortunately not much cases are reported with police and thus escape the public eye. But as a consultant firm and private investigator, we can surely say that this is the biggest problem in the city.

The record available with police says it clearly. Out of the 50-odd crime registered in the city since IT Act came into existence, some 13 offences pertain to harassment of girls and women. In the last six years, one fourth of the registered cyber crimes fall under this category. Remaining two thirds of the crime include all types of offence ranging from credit card theft and misuse to data and source code theft.

These include creating false profiles on orkut, sending obscene mails, text messages and pictures. "Registered crimes are just tip of the iceberg. We sometimes get complaints or just applications to block a particular site. In most of the cases, girls do not come forward for various reasons. They fear their image being maligned," said Chandrakant Thakur, assistant police inspector in the cyber crime branch."

One worrying aspect in cyber crimes pertaining to creating obscene profiles is large number of ‘unidentified’ culprits. Cyber sleuths say they can trace an offending PC’s Internet Protocol number. But if it happens to be from an internet cafe, which usually do not keep detailed records of users, the culprit can not be traced. It lefts victims with the only option of removing the offending site form the cyber world.

Vishal Kumar says since student community is high in the Pune, it is obvious that such types of crimes do happen. But he has a word of solace to the citizens also. "Cyber crimes do happen everywhere, but in Pune the awareness for the same is very high. This is a good factor in all this story."

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Major Cases In Pune

7/10/03
Accused sent many obscene emails to the victim and threatened to send it to police, so that the matter is reported in the press girl’s image gets maligned. The accused also asked Rs. 15,000 to settle the matter.

10/10/03
One identified man posted a bogus profile of one girl on internet with obscene photos and content.

27/03/07
Accused used to call the victim on phone in filthy language. He thereafter posted an obscene profile showing the girl as call girl.

28/06/07
A girl student posted an obscene profile of her friend as a call girl. The profile contained all the details of the friend. The victim who was from a business family in Kothrud, filed a complaint with police. Investigations revealed that the incidence occurred out of love triangle.

6/09/07
One unidentified person sent nude and obscene photos of a woman to her colleagues and relatives so as to malign her.

4/01/2008
A woman’s cell no. was posted in the RediffBol chat tool in the Pune group. The woman was mentioned as a call girl and another no. was given as her pimp who was actually her father-in-law. The culprit remains unidentified.

1/02/2008
One unidentified person sent obscene and threatening mails to a student of MIT college. When the girl blocked his mails, the person posted some derogatory scraps on two of her friend’s Orkut account. The person also threatened to beat the two guys also.

March 2008
A girl was sent obscene emails and her duplicate profile was created on Orkut. Even numbers from the family members of the girl were given on the profile who in turn began received obscene calls.

(Published in Pune Mirror on 30 April)