Delhi Cops are all packed  and ready to upgrade their defence system to fight the new territory which is expanding at a fast pace. Cyber Crimes are up and are haunting people, take not of the previous incidence of death of a young boy in Mumbai, now cops are upgrading its Cyber Cell to tackle the "crimes of the future".

The capital's police has decided to hold regular interactions with IT majors to upgrade its personnel's technical know-how in a bid to keep pace with the rapid technological advancement and the fast changing cyber crime scene.

"The fast changing technical environment throws up new challenges. Technical innovation leads to new modes of crime and we have to keep pace with technology to tackle it," city Police Commissioner Y S Dadwal said.

He said the force will hold interactions with IT companies to help increase the efficiency of the police personnel dealing with cases of cyber crime. Noting that instances of cyber crimes are increasing across the country, he said, Delhi Police is fully geared up to meet the challenge.

"The figures are increasing. We have a number of IT experts and qualified engineers. We are confident of catching cyber criminals," he said.

The Cyber Cell, which functions under Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing, registered 17 cases last year related to hacking, obscenity, e-commerce fraud and Internet related copyright violations.

In 2005, the figure was 12, while the cell has registered six cyber crime cases this year. The cell had received 58 complaints in 2005 and 206 in 2006, but many of these cases did not come under the ambit of cyber crime laws. This year, the cell has received 35 complaints so far.

This year the cases include one where an airhostess complained that she had been profiled in the social networking site 'Orkut' as a "sex struck woman".

In another incident, some people created a page of a research scholar in Jawaharlal Nehru University linking him with women in the campus.

The recent case of misuse of social networking sites was that of the abduction and murder of a Mumbai-based businessman's teenaged son. A "friend" left a message in his 'Orkut' page for a meeting at a shopping mall after which the boy, Adnan, was kidnapped and killed.

Not to be left behind in utilising advancements in IT, the police is also planning to connect its headquarters with offices of the Deputy Commissioners of Police in all the nine districts for effective communication between middle-level officers and top brass through the cyber highway.

"Talks are at an advanced stage with the service provider MTNL and we hope to get it done soon," Dadwal said. He said the police is visualising a scenario where they could keep a hawk eye on the capital.

"Once this materialises, our communication system will improve, which means that we get an upper hand. We could also regulate the traffic flow sitting in the control room by viewing the visuals from various parts of the city," he said.