New Delhi: Financial cyber crime complaints on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) or calls to 1930 will now be screened electronically, and those pertaining to crimes of more than Rs 10 lakh will be turned into zero FIRs automatically, under the new initiative of the MInistry of Home Affairs
On Monday, Home Minister Amit Shah took to X to announce the launch of the e-Zero FIR initiative as a pilot project in Delhi. This will be expanded to other states and Union territories at later stages. The Delhi Police and Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) have collaborated to put the process in place for the registration of cases in accordance with the new provisions of Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
“The MHA’s Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) introduced the new e-Zero FIR initiative to nab any criminal with unprecedented speed. Launched as a pilot project for Delhi, the new system will automatically convert cyber financial crimes filed at NCRP or 1930 to FIRs, initially above the threshold limit of Rs 10 lakh. The new system, which will drive investigations swiftly cracking down on cybercriminals, will soon be extended to the entire nation. The Modi government is bolstering the cybersecurity grid to build a cyber-secure Bharat,” Shah wrote.
Speaking to ThePrint, a senior police officer explained, “Earlier the complaints filed on NCRP were screened by police personnel, and then an investigating officer was assigned. He or she then reached out to the complainant, and then after the initial probe, an FIR was lodged. Now in this system, it will be automatic. The system will screen the complaints, and categorise the ones above Rs 10 lakh and convert them into zero FIRs. The system will then connect them to the e-FIR servers and the zero FIRs will be pushed automatically to the concerned cyber crime police station under which the case falls. The complainants then will have to just sign the FIR within three days from the date of the FIR being lodged”.
All this will be done using a software, called Application Programming Interface.
“This newly introduced process involves integration of I4C’s NCRP system, Delhi Police’s e-FIR system and National Crime Record Bureau’s (NCRB) Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS),” read a PIB (Press Information Bureau) statement. “This initiative will improve the conversion of NCRP/1930 complaints into FIRs enabling easy restoration of money lost by victims and facilitate punitive action against cyber criminals. It leverages the provisions of the recently introduced new criminal laws.”
Senior police officers said that with the faster and automatic registration of FIRs, investigations will now be kickstarted quickly, avoiding the loss of time in the usual manual process, making the nabbing of cyber criminals a swift process.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)