INDIA'S NEWEST CYBER CRIME HUB

Recent arrests by the Matunga police in a sextortion case reveal intricate training centres in the village where people, irrespective of age or gender, are equipped to execute various frauds

- AISHWARYA IYER

RAJASTHAN'S DEEG

■ Jaipur police recently identified and blocked 21,804 pre-activated SIM cards and seized 23,004 mobile phones from Bharatpur

■ They identified six crore records of active mobile phones in the region

■ A study by the Future Crime Research Foundation revealed that Bharatpur and Mathura have replaced Jamtara as the top cybercrime hotspot in India

■ Bharatpur stands at 18% when it comes to its contribution to cybercrime cases in India, followed by Matura, 12%, Nuh, 11%, Deoghar, 10% and Jamtara, 9.6%

After Jharkhand's Jamtara district, Bharatpur's Deeg in Rajasthan is becoming the latest cybercrime hub. "The village looks an ultra-peaceful place but one shouldn't judge it by its view. Shops, fields, houses everywhere there is always some sort of meeting or training taking place. Some may look like they are going to schools or tuition, with a notebook and a pen, or a bag, but they are going to the training centres which trains them to cheat and dupe people using the internet as the medium," explained Keshav Wagh, a police officer attached to the Matunga police.