Cops in web wonderland

The city police are having a tough time over a complaint registered on website hacking. Even after the FIR has been registered in the case, the police are yet to determine whether it is a cyber case or a civil one.

The complaint was lodged by a Kochi-based businessman Kurian George. According to the complaint, he cannot access his email address and was unable to do banking transactions since June 7, and incurred a loss of Rs 30 lakh, as his email account was blocked. 

According to Kurian, Aldrin Leni and Avin Leo, two brothers and partners in the business, had allegedly committed financial irregularities in the Kochi-based company named Logic Sparks Infotech while he was in the US to look after his business.

But the police could not estimate the actual loss, hence they cannot proceed with the case. They believe that it was a civil case by  nature even though an FIR has been registered for hacking the website.

“When Aldrin and Avin realised that the irregularities would come to light, they blocked the corporate email address. For the past 20 days I have not been able to access my email. Many of the projects have been lost because of this, and I am unable to do banking transactions either. This is a cyber crime but the police are not treating this in such a manner even though I lodged a complaint,” said Kurian.

On June 9, Kurian and the brother duo locked the company with two separate locks. But later the brothers broke into the office, Kurian said. On June 11, he filed a complaint against the brothers to the city police commissioner and to cyber cell.

On the other side, Avin Leo said that while he and his brother Aldrin were away, Kurian had created false bills and taken computers from the office. “In order to prevent further loss to the company they had instructed to block the email address,” Avin said.Sunish Babu, Circle Inspector at Ernakulam Central Police Station who probes the case, denies the allegations by Kurian George.

“The three directors together took space in Google and registered 10 domains. Following the clash among them, two of the directors instructed the employees to reset the password. Since the loss cannot be estimated, we have got nothing to do with it. This is only an ego clash between the directors and not a criminal offence,” he said.