Kerala to have law on cyber crime

Two days after Kerala officials received an email threatening President APJ Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, state Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said on Sunday that work had begun on an ordinance to deal with cyber crime.

"Of late we have had several instances like a letter bomb and now the threatening email for the prime minister and president. We will soon come out with an ordinance to deal with cyber crimes," Balakrishnan told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday.

"The cabinet will discuss the laws on cyber crime. Top IT experts are working on it in tandem with officials in the police department. Cyber cafes would come under the ordinances and so would all IT-related crimes," he said, speaking to reporters at the police headquarters.

He complimented the police for tracing the man who had sent the threatening email from a cafe in Kochi and arresting him on Saturday night.

"The efforts of the police team that cracked the email crime in a matter of hours is certainly laudable," he said.

He also added that it would be wrong to single out one particular religion for all the wrongs. He said that both the federal and state security agencies were on high alert to check the alleged stepping up of operations by fundamentalist forces in the state and the country.