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Property attachment of fake IT companies mulled

HYDERABAD: Waking up to the racket of fly-by-night IT companies that are doing a vanishing act after collecting huge sums of money from job-seekers, the state government has decided to appoint a high-powered committee to check the rampant menace.

Among the options that the committee, which would include cyber crime experts from the police department and officials from the IT department, has been asked to consider is attachment of the property of the offenders.

The first meeting of the committee is scheduled to be held in the last week of March.

The meeting is likely to discuss various issues including selection of panel members, modalities for preventing such crimes and also on punishing the white collar criminals. The action plan would also include empowering CID with additional power to attach properties of white collar criminals in order to reimburse the victims of such crimes.

The decision to appoint a committee was taken at a meeting on Tuesday which was attended by IT minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah, IT secretary, and officials from enforcing agencies such as the home department, CB-CID and cyber crime wing of the police. At the meeting, the economic offences wing of the CID explained various types of crimes committed by spurious IT companies in the last few years.

The IT minister then advised the IT secretary to constitute a committee and prepare an action plan to curtail these activities.

Meanwhile, the IT department has launched the first rural BPO in the country at Challapalli village in Krishna district. The Sunflower IT BPO project became functional on Monday.

Ponnala said the government would replicate this model in setting up similar rural BPOs in other towns and villages in the state.