At present, there are no plans to set up Cyber Warrior Police Force. The government is working on setting up of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Minister of State for Home Affairs, Hansraj Gangaram Ahir has said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha. The main objective of the I4C scheme is to set up a national cybercrime coordination center for law enforcement agencies of States/UTs as an effective apparatus to handle issues related to cybercrime in the country.
“Adequate legal framework exists in the form of Information Technology Act, 2000 along with Indian Penal Code, 1860 to deal with cyber safety and cyber-crime issues. Further, amendment of law is an ongoing process to take care of emerging needs,” said an official release.
On monitoring of social media, the release clarified that police and public order are State subjects as per the Constitution. States are responsible for prevention, detection and investigation of cyber crimes through their law enforcement machinery as per the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, 2000.
“Law enforcement agencies monitor the web and social media and take appropriate action for blocking of such unlawful content under section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Committee constituted under Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 periodically monitors the compliance of the directions issued under the provisions of Information Technology Act, 2000. Government holds meetings with intermediaries from time to time for strengthening the cooperation framework to ensure better compliance,” it added.
From 2017 till June 2018, 956 Facebook URLS have been blocked; followed by Twitter (409), YouTube (152), Instagram (66) and others (79).