“Cyber crime is increasing by the day. With newer and more sophisticated technologies evolving, cyber-criminals are enjoying a free run. To check the menace, we have decided to have a police station that will be dedicated to cyber-crime cases. In addition, we have launched a website today in which people can easily file their complaints. The data will be kept secret,” said city Police Commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakraborty.

The cyber crime police station will be the fourth of its kind in the country, the other three being in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai. The new police station will be located on the premises of the Kolkata Police headquarters in Lalbazar.

“On Monday, we will place the proposal before the state government and the police station will be operational soon,” said Chakraborty.

Several IT giants in the city, including Wipro, TCS and IBM, have been involved in supplying the expertise to run the cyber crime police station, which will operate round-the-clock and register cyber crimes.

“The cyber crime police station will have a group of advisers who will work with investigating agencies. We have 141 volunteer IT experts who will work with the police to update the website and to reply to queries of people registered in the website,” said a senior police official.

Meanwhile, following the recent terror alert issued by the Union Home Ministry, the police have stepped up security in the city and owners of the cyber cafes have been asked to install a special software supplied by the Kolkata Police in their computers.

“We have floated tenders for preparing software that will capture the image of the user and save the details of the users. Earlier, all the cyber café owners were asked to maintain a register to keep a record of the customers. But through the software, we will be able to have digital information about the users. We are consulting our legal advisers to make the software mandatory for all the cyber cafes in the city,” added Chakraborty.