• An email containing a malware or a threat can give vital clues about its sender
• WhatsApp data deleted from the phone of a suspect can be retrieved from his or her laptop if the suspect had logged into WhatsApp on the device

Calcutta police officers on Monday received tips and training for tackling cyber offences, most of which are directed against women.

A workshop organised by the women’s grievance cell of Calcutta police, along with the International Justice Mission, in Calcutta highlighted the ways in which women are exploited in the digital era through the internet and explained how investigation of cyber offences could be streamlined for faster cracking of the cases.

Those who spoke at the event emphasised how women — from corporate offices to villages — are falling prey to cyber crime.

“When a man tricks a woman colleague into making her check her email on his laptop with the intention to use the password later, that’s cyber crime. Similarly, when human traffickers use chat platforms like WhatsApp to send photographs of girls and women to their prospective buyers, that’s a form of cyber crime, too,” said one of them.

“Cyber stalking, sending threats of false accusations through emails or mobile phone, making threatening or false posts on social media, data theft or spying a person’s computer are all forms of cyber crime,” said Ashok V.M. Kumar, of the IJM.

Biswajit Saha, associate director of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Calcutta, gave tips on how cops could track an accused who has committed a crime using the internet.

“An analysis of an email could give out vital clues not just about the IP address of

the device from where the mail is being sent but also about its make,” Saha said.

DC (cyber crime) Aparajita Rai told the officers to investigate cyber crime cases at the police station level instead of forwarding all cases to the cyber police station.

“This is not the right attitude. Police stations should also do investigation of cyber crimes instead of forwarding all the cases to the cyber police station,” Rai said at the workshop held at the Alipore Bodyguardlines on Monday morning.

Majority of the offences that include mobile phone or e-mails are referred to the cyber police station that specialises in probing cyber offences.

Police sources said, although the procedure for getting a call details record of a suspect has become simple and faster now compared to what it used to be till a few years ago, cops at the police station level still find it difficult to directly contact service providers like Google, Facebook or WhatsApp – where majority of the complaints are reported.

“Hence we are forced to route the cases through the cyber police station as they have the proper contacts to connect to these global companies,” an officer reasoned.