Nepal Police on Monday arrested a teenager for allegedly hacking the Facebook accounts of some film actors and demanding money by texting their Facebook friends.

A special team of the Nepal Police Cyber Crime Bureau, in coordination with District Police Office, Parsa, arrested a 14-year-old boy of Parsa for hacking social media accounts of artists including Deepashree Niraula and Saroj Khanal and asking money from their friends.

Superintendent of Police Navind Aryal said that the teenager was arrested from Parsa on Monday after getting permission from the Kathmandu District Court as he is a minor.

Khanal and Niraula had lodged a complaint with the bureau on March 25 after they came to know that hackers had misused their accounts and demanded money from a mutual friend through Facebook.

According to Aryal the case is being investigated.

“We will reveal full details soon,”Aryal told the Post. “Police are investigating the juvenile under the Electronic Transaction Act-2008.”

Data provided by the bureau shows that a total of over 5,574 cases have been filed at the Cybercrime Bureau between 2016 and 2020, and the number of cases have been increasing every year.

Police officials believe that increased internet access has led to a greater misuse of social networking sites, resulting in a rise in cybercrimes.

Baburam Aryal, a lawyer specialising on information technology and cybercrime, also believes that easy access of the internet and lack of awareness about the use of the internet and its possible consequences have resulted in the rise in cyber crimes.

“Teenagers are very curious and they sometimes unknowingly commit crime and get arrested,” Aryal told the Post. “Therefore it’s the parents’ responsibility to monitor what their children are upto while using the internet.”

According to an inspector at the Cyber Crime Bureau, who spoke in the condition of anonymity as they are not allowed to talk with the media, a lot of people don’t even realise they are committing a crime.

“Cybercrime isn’t just limited to the misuse of, and harassment through, social media; even stalking and cyber-bullying falls under this category,” said the officer.

Nepal doesn’t yet have adequate laws to deal with cybercrimes, so all kinds of crimes taking place in the online space are handled under the Electronic Transaction Act-2008, which has a provision of a jail term up to five years or a fine up to Rs20,000.