In response to one of the biggest-ever attempts by Pakistan-based outfits to conduct cyber warfare against India, home minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Sunday spoke to Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik — the first direct contact between the two — to urge Islamabad to urgently check and “neutralise” those using social media sites to whip up communal unrest in India. The security establishment, meanwhile, armed itself with technical evidence to prove that the SMS-MMS “hate campaign” originated in Pakistan.
A Pakistan-based hardline group is suspected to be behind this campaign. A detailed Union home ministry report accessed by this newspaper shows how fake profiles and fraudulent pictures taken from places as far apart as Tibet and Thailand have been “morphed” to distort accounts of the Assam violence on social media sites and inflame Muslim passions in different parts of India during the Ramzan fasting period. It warned that elements trying to foment unrest had indicated a rise in violence after Id-ul-Fitr on Monday.
The 43-page report refers to attempts to get “Muslims to rise against Buddhists” and also set off “retaliatory provocation by right-wing extremists”.
Government sources said the online content was prepared in Pakistan before July 13, and that digital media were used to rapidly spread “threats and counter-threats far and wide in India”. Over 200 URLs (uniform resource locator), the bulk of whose origin was traced to Pakistan, were identified by NTRO and shared with the Computer Emergency Response Team. It has blocked over 100 URLs spreading hate, and more are likely to be pulled out.
The security establishment is culling out IP addresses of such online content created in Pakistan to prepare a detailed dossier on the “cyber war” launched against India so that it can be raised at international forums.
Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were being used along with Internet chat rooms, VOIP calls and emails to spread disinformation and rumours in Assam and elsewhere in India, the MHA report said. “Most of the posts are in vernacular mediums, the translation of which has not been attempted,” the report added.
Mr Rehman Malik, who telephoned Mr Shinde to convey Id-ul-Fitr greetings, also invited the Indian minister to Islamabad to sign the revised visa agreement, pending after Pakistan’s refusal to sign it at the home secretaries’ talks earlier this year.
Mr Malik also reiterated his commitment to bringing the 26/11 perpetrators to justice, an MHA spokesperson said.