Monday, June 27 2005 11:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: As cyber crimes in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) make headlines, computer forensic experts say Indian investigating agencies need to be a step ahead of the criminals in putting together sophisticated tools to discover evidence.

Billions of Rupees are stolen each year by criminals with credit card crimes topping the list as the digital revolution in India brings to fore newer frauds, says Samir Datt, Director of Computer Forensics and Investigations in Pune-based software firm 'Visionindia'.

"Computer forensics is an emerging field that could help victims of computer crimes to discover evidence. It has wide applications in investigation and analysis techniques to acquire potential legal evidence", says Datt whose firm helps police forces of many Indian states in busting cyber crimes and employs software used by the FBI as well as police departments of countries like the US and Germany.

Alongside credit card crimes, the number of cases of insurance and medical fraud, money laundering, espionage and intelligence gathering were also on the rise, he said.

"There has been a dramatic increase in the number of cases where women are harassed on e-mail by jilted lovers or maniacs," Datt says.

"We have handled a case where a few employees of a Pune-based offshore processing unit stole the PIN numbers of US Citibank clients and tried to steal money but were caught."

"We also nabbed a youngster who had sent misleading e-mails to the police about a girl who had spurned him... the evidence matters the most and it needs to be precise," he adds.

M L Sharma, Government examiner of questioned documents, at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Kolkata says the number of people forging signatures or computer documents has seen a phenomenal rise in recent times.

"We receive loads of forged and manipulated documents from investigating agencies across the country. The volumes have been increasing every year," he says.

DIG of West Bengal's Police Academy Gourav Dutt says the police is ill-equipped to handle cyber crimes as technology had made things a lot simpler for criminals to avoid the net laid down by sleuths.

"Today, a pizza reaches you faster than the police! You just have to punch a few buttons and order. In an era of automation, the investigators need to have a strong base of computer forensics to be able to get leads on any case faster than the criminals can wipe evidence off," he says.