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Pune: Going by statistics, the phenomenon of crimes related to social media was a mere 152 two years ago.

It rose to 554 last year , but has already zoomed to 507 in the first seven months of this year.

The cyber crime branch of the Pune police, which deals with them, said, of the total number of complaints in 2017, 330 were related fake profiles, defaming someone on their web page, posting vulgar comments and photographs, and hacking a page for extorting money.

In 2016, there were 387 such complaints.

Deputy commissioner of police (cyber & economics) Sudhir Hiremath said people, especially youngsters are using social networking sites on their desktops and on their cellphones "to exact 'revenge' from someone who may have hurt them knowingly or unknowingly".

These social networking crimes range from creating fake profiles and operating them, posting defamatory or vulgar comments about people and their beliefs, identity thefts, hacking Facebook pages or profiles, and posting cellphone numbers of women, uploading pornographic material on these sites, and morphing images.

Inspector Radhika Phadke of the cyber crime cell told TOI that many people post their bitter comments on social networking sites which hurt the feelings of communities. "These cases have to be handled sensitively by the police," she added.

A major crime that has increased in the last six months is of hacking profiles or pages and posting vulgar comments or photographs, Phadke said. There were 83 such cases in 2016 which increased to 104 complaints in 2017.

Women are particularly vulnerable to such attacks. In some cases, someone known to the victim has hacked the page and posted vulgar comments and obscene photographs on the profile, police said.

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Social media trove becomes hunting ground for criminals - Times of India