Sagar Biswas :
In the wake of increasing cyber crimes in the recent days, the government has planned to form a ‘central cell’ involving all relating organizations, law enforcing and intelligence agencies with a view to countering the threat.
In this regard, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission [BTRC] has prepared a project proposal over formation of the ‘central cell’. In the proposal, it has suggested to increase monitoring on social media activities, proper investigation of all cyber crimes and accurate detection of the cyber criminals, officials said on Tuesday.
They said, the project proposal would be sent to Prime Minister’s Office very shortly for final approval.
Meanwhile, the BTRC has taken the initiatives at a time when cyber crimes have appeared as a major threat to the law enforcing and intelligence agencies.
There are widespread allegations that, the fundamentalists and militant groups are frequently using the popular social media for communications and serve their vested interest. Besides, the ‘secular’ bloggers are also circulating their views taking the advantage of internet facility.
“Apart from BTRC, different government departments and organizations under Information and Communication Technology [ICT] sector and the law enforcement agencies separately work to counter cyber crimes in accordance with their jurisdictions and capability,” Sarwar Alam, Secretary of BTRC, said. “As per the new proposal, the BTRC has taken initiatives to work closely with the law enforcing, intelligence and security agencies in a coordinated way in a bid to resist cyber crimes and ensure cyber security,” he said.
Sources said, the senior BTRC officials have already sat in meetings with the law enforcement and intelligence agencies where the BTRC gave assurance to provide all-out technological support in this regard.
At the same time, the BTRC has also planned to install technological and engineering infrastructure to provide support to the police investigation for identifying cyber criminals. It will also sit with government high-ups to discuss the overall issue in different range, sources added.
“The BTRC doesn’t directly regulate social media including, facebook and twitter. The BTRC has also not signed any MoU or agreement with these organizations. However, the BTRC makes contact with these organizations in public interest in line with its own rules and regulations,” Sarwar Alam said.
Although, there are penalties of minimum seven years to maximum 14 years imprisonment or a fine of Tk one crore or both for cyber crimes, the government has failed to check the increasing number of wrongdoers in the social media apparently due to lack of coordinated technical move.
In this backdrop, a senior police official of Dhaka Metropolitan Police [DMP], preferring to remain anonymous, said cyber crimes are now rising with the enormous advancement of ICT and its unethical use has become ’cause of social decay’ in different fields.
“The qualified cyber criminals are continuing their crimes keeping own identity concealed. They are using proxy identities to serve their ill purpose. And for that reason, the popular social media, including facebook and twitter, are becoming boomerang for many people,” he said.
In many cases, abuse of these social media affects personal lives of many people where the victims were compelled to commit suicide and several family relations also have broken up, according to the DMP official.
