DW BUREAU / cHANDIGARH Cybercrime units will be set up across Punjab in order to deal with rising cases of online fraud, state police chief Dinkar Gupta said on Wednesday. Around 200 cybercrime and digital forensic experts too will be hired, he said. "Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we are spending more time in the cyber world and many people using online banking or students attending online classes are still not aware about the term cybercrime," said the Director General of Police while addressing an online awareness campaign 'Cyber Surakhya'. The three-month long campaign is the joint initiative of the Punjab Police and Cyber Peace Foundation (CPF), according to an official statement here. While the recruitment of IT and cybercrime experts will start from April 2021, the units are expected to be functional at district level in the next six to eight months, said Gupta. The Punjab Police already have a state-level cybercrime cell in Mohali. Gupta said the state police is committed to ensure the safe cyber world to the citizens especially to women and children, who are more vulnerable to fall prey to cybercrime. He also stressed on the need to sensitise citizens regarding new-age cyber frauds including telephone and financial frauds, identity theft crimes (phishing), and malware detection besides helping them to seek redressal to mitigate the threats.     He said that the Punjab Police and CPF have also conducted a survey to further understand the gaps and put into place safety and response measures to fight cybercrime.     Advisor CPF Rakshit Tandon said that 8,505 respondents including 5,101 females, who participated in the study displayed a deep understanding on cybercrime including stealing the data from computer hardware (51 per cent) as well as crimes such as hacking (51 per cent), online impersonation (39 per cent), and online harassment (38 per cent). Thirty-four per cent respondents also stated that conducting unlawful transactions from someone else's account and spreading fake news (36 per cent) also falls into the category of cybercrime, he said. (editor@dailyworld.in)