Delhi Police women’s unit eyes expanded digital mandate

DElhi constabulary force ar in the modern stages of a proposition to authorise their special police unit for women and children (SPUWAC) to take complete charge of online sexual crime cases against them from receiving complaints and registering first information reports (FIR) to investigation and prosecution, senior police officers familiar with the development said.“As such cases require sensitivity and familiar approach towards victims, the need was felt to have a single, specialised unit with domain expertise. By empowering SPUWAC to handle such cases, we want a swift victim-centric response instead of complaints being shuffled between multiple units,” a senior police officer from the SPUWAC said, requesting anonymity.Another proposal in the pipeline is to increase the unit’s strength and create a dedicated department in each of Delhi’s 15 police districts, similar to cyber police stations that were added to each district in December 2021 amid rising cyber crimes, they said.At present, all cyber crimes, including those involving children and women, are registered at the 15 cyber police stations) or specialised units, such as the intelligence fusion and strategic operations (IFSO), special cell and crime branch. But the cases linked to the uploading and circulation of obscene materials related to children and women fail to get the requisite attention given the sheer volume of cheating and cyber fraud cases, particularly those involving large sums of money. Having a dedicated unit with the required resources would help police deal with such cases faster, say officials.Role in combating child sexual abuse materialEstablished in 2005, SPUWAC is currently only authorised to handle cases related to domestic violence and dowry harassment. Its role is largely limited to conducting enquiries or registering FIRs under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Dowry Prohibition Act. It has a strength of 280 personnel, mostly women, and is headed by special commissioner of police Ajay Chaudhary.In August 2023, the SPUWAC was made the nodal agency for combating child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) in the Capital. It handles cyber tipline reports (CTRs) received from the US-based non-profit National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) through the Indian cyber crime coordination centre (I4C) and the national cyber crime reporting portal (NCRP). CTRs are alerts flagging suspected child pornography or CSEAM online, along with technical details that may help identify victims or offenders.Apart from the CTRs, the law enforcement agencies also receive CSEAM-related information through complaints lodged at the national cyber crime reporting portal (NCRP) or at police stations.“Earlier, the National Crime Record Bureau collected CTRs from the NCMEC and shared them with the nodal agency of the concerned states. In Delhi, that agency was the Delhi Police’s intelligence fusion and strategic operations unit (IFSO). From August 2023 onwards, the SPUWAC is the nodal agency for receiving and examining the CTRs before forwarding them to the concerned cyber police station in Delhi for legal action,” said deputy commissioner of police (SPUWAC) Anjitha Chepyala.Since then, SPUWAC has received over 26,000 CTRs suspected to be related to victims and accused in Delhi. Of these, at least 203 have resulted in FIRs under Section 67B of the IT Act, with many of them solved with the arrest of the offenders, a sub-inspector, who works at SPUWAC and handles CTRs, said, asking not to be identified.“In the existing mechanism, we access CTR data of the entire Delhi from the I4C’s portal and then categorise them into two categories – ‘immediate intervention’ in which we know that we’ll be able to nab the suspect or ‘intermediate intervention’ in which we may not be able to find the suspect immediately,” said the officer. “For example, if someone has shared pornographic material and we have their IP address, it factors in the first category.”Why change is neededAccording to another officer associated with the unit, with the registration of cyber fraud cases increasing multifold, “Sexual cyber crimes related to women and children are not getting the desired attention.”While 136 FIRs related to child pornography were registered in 2024, only 63 were registered in 2025, the officer said.Moreover, each tipline has to be carefully scrutinised, with many cases involving servers or users located outside Delhi or even outside India.“FIRs are registered only after establishing jurisdiction and identifying victims or suspects,” the second officer added.Officers said empowering SPUWAC to directly handle these cases would significantly cut down response time and improve coordination with central agencies, social media platforms and prosecutors. The unit already has trained women officers and counsellors, making it better suited to deal with victims of sexual crimes, particularly minors.“The proposed district-level dedicated police stations would further institutionalise the focus. These stations are expected to have specialised investigators, cyber forensic support and trained staff to handle cases of online stalking, morphing, circulation of intimate images, CSAM and other forms of digital abuse,” the officer added.