Youths lured to join fake call centres in Guwahati alarming trend says, city top cop

At a time when the Assam Police has intensified its crackdown on fake call centres operating from heart of capital city Guwahati, some alarming facts have come to light during the course of investigations. Mushrooming of such call centres in Guwahati gives a clear indication that the city has become a hotspot for cyber criminals.

While cops are leaving no stone unturned to unearth the nexus behind duping people of their hard earned money, youths from the Northeast are seemingly falling prey to such rackets. If that was not all, youths from the national capital and other progressive states of the nation were also working in such fake call centres in Guwahati. Especially educated, unemployed youths are being ‘used’ by such anti-social elements to help them in their scams.

In an exclusive conversation with Northeast Live, Guwahati Commissioner of Police Diganta Barah expressed grave concern over the fact that youths (detained during the crackdown) were hand in glove with the cyber criminals despite knowing as to what was going on.

The Guwahati Commissioner of Police said, “In 8 call centres which we have raided, the callers are from different states – from our own state Assam, than neighbouring Northeast states like Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, they have the advantage because generally in these states our youth, they are good in speaking English. Surprisingly, from states like Delhi, Punjab, UP, Bihar, Maharashtra, from those states also youths, both male and female, they have come to Guwahati and they were working in such fake call centres.”

Worried over the facts that have surfaced during the ongoing probe, Guwahati CP DIganta Barah stated, “It is nothing like that they did not know about the activities they were doing. Initially it is possible they have been lured by these criminals in the name of call centres. But after they joined the call centres, I am sure they have come to know about the kind of activities they were indulged in. This is quite a disturbing trend because our youths are turning into these type of cybercrimes.”

While 8 such fake call centres have been busted so far, the Assam Police is also working further to zero in on such other fraud call centres. From the statements of Diganta Barah, it seems that such facilities have mushroomed in Guwahati unnoticed as time passed by.

CP Diganta Barah mentioned, “During the investigations carried out so far, the scale at which these type of call centres is running in Guwahati is really a worrying factor for us. Though we have carried out raids and we could detect 8 such call centres where at an average 50-60 callers were working every night, but I believe there are many smaller or bigger such call centres being run in Guwahati or nearby places or in other states. After interrogation what we have come to know is that these people have links in other states too.”

It may be mentioned that 52 individuals involved in this multi-crore scam have been arrested so far while 191 have been detained so far since crackdown began on Friday.

Watch the full conversation here: