Naqvi acknowledges staff shortage at NCCIA

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Friday acknowledged that the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) had only 61 officers across Punjab, leaving investigators overwhelmed by the volume of complaints.

Speaking to the media in Lahore, Naqvi said the number of such cases was astonishing and stressed that public awareness campaigns were urgently needed.

Naqvi pointed out that some cybercrime cases required decisions within days rather than weeks or months, but investigators were struggling to cope with their workloads. He questioned how an investigation officer could effectively handle a caseload of 3,000 to 4,000 cases.

He said money transfers in such cases ranged from Rs10,000 to tens of millions of rupees.

Referring to enforcement action, he said a government employee had also been arrested a day earlier and that he had directed the authorities to proceed against the official if found guilty.

Naqvi said around 600 people had been arrested in operations linked to call centres over the preceding 10 to 12 days. He also referred to the arrest of a suspect in a case involving Rs25 billion.

Highlighting the gap between the scale of the problem and the resources available to investigators, the minister said Punjab had a population of around 140 million, while the NCCIA had only 61 officers working across the province.