E-Messengers Of Terror

It won’t be easy to trace Indian Mujahideen through its email, nor stop it from repeating the act, says RANA AYYUB

WE ARE all still in shock… Please don’t hound us like this” says a visibly tired Nikhil Kamath, whose family owns Kamran Power Control Ltd, the firm from whose wi-fi connection media houses received an Indian Mujahideen terror email, minutes before five bombs went off across Delhi on September 13. Ever since the email was traced to their address, the atmosphere at the Kamath residence has been tense, with the Anti-Terrorism Squad and officials from the cyber crime cell investigating the case and questioning the family for hours. Kamran International is a 25-year-old company manufacturing tailor-made electronic panels. “Clearly, somebody hacked into our wi-fi network, our negligence in securing the connection has cost us heavily,” says Nikhil.

As with the blasts in Bangalore, Jaipur and Ahmedabad, the Indian Mujahideen email claimed responsibility, calling them a reaction to the harassment of Muslims in the country. Hacking a wi-fi account is something the outfit has done twice before, first with American software professional Kenneth Haywood, to announce the July 26 Ahmedabad blasts; the second involved the account of a lab in central Mumbai’s Khalsa College. Investigations, however, into the origin of the email have reached a dead end.

The second email, sent late last month, declared revenge against the ATS and the Gujarat police, and stated that Mufti Abul Bashar, arrested in the Ahmedabad blasts case, was innocent. The probe has also gone nowhere, and all nine suspects have been acquitted.

According to ATS chief Hemant Karkare the Delhi blasts hacking is “very similar to the Kenneth Haywood case, the wi-fi account of the firm had not been secured, which is the reason it happened”. When asked if key suspect Subhan Qureishi was the only person whose links to the blasts were being probed, Karkare said, “It’s not just Qureishi we’re looking at, we’re also on the lookout for his associates — and they are not just from the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, but also from other organisations.” Karkare said the ATS will carry out parallel investigations in the case, though it has handed the case to the cyber crime cell for a separate technical probe.

But cyber cell in-charge ACP Devan Bharati says cracking the case is difficult work, and admits that tracing the sender of the email will perhaps not be possible. “We have taken the help of officials from NASSCOM and FICCI, but so far there have been no leads,” Bharati told TEHELKA. Bharti also said there was not much that could be done to prevent a recurrence of the hacking except to spread awareness regarding wi-fi security.

According to FICCI estimates, Mumbai has around 50,000 wi-fi connections, around a third of which are not secured, making them susceptible. Says Vijay Mukhi, who heads FICCI’s IT cell and has been helping with the Delhi blasts case, “Most wi-fi connections are owned by individuals and small establishments, and they often do not care to secure their connections. There is just no technology yet to trace the sender of an email if it has been sent from an unsecured network.”

Senior officers with the police, though, have told TEHELKA that the cyber cell is just not sufficiently equipped to handle such crimes. Said one Crime Branch officer, ”The personnel who are part of the cyber cell are not even aware of the latest technology. They just pick up the educated lot from the police force and enroll them in the cyber crime team. They are not even given adequate training.” Bharti, however, reiterates that his team, which was set up nine years ago, has some of the best-trained officers in the force. “We have around 30 personnel who are adepts in the latest technology and have been successful in solving most cyber-related cases. The Mumbai police is in fact planning to start its own cyber police station.”

MEANWHILE, LIFE has not been the same for those the hackers used as pawns to further their ends. Manohar Kamath, Kamran International’s 65- year-old proprietor, has refused to speak to the media so far. But his son, Nikhil, says Saturday’s events have traumatised him. Nikhil also says that though the ATS and crime branch officials have been extremely fair with them, the media has blown the situation out of proportion, making the family look like criminals. Nikhil, however, says his family has nothing to worry about and believes that their case will not be treated the same way as Haywood’s was. “We have given every possible information in all sincerity, unlike Haywood who gave only very sketchy details.”

While the entire episode may have put the Kamaths under pressure, it must certainly have taken some of the heat off Haywood, on whom there still is some suspicion because of his contradictory statements to the media. Haywood blamed media intrusiveness in his statement to the ATS when he returned to the country a week ago. However, after the latest Indian Mujahideen email, he remarked to a media house on how it was interesting to see that the terrorists had once again picked a random innocent person through whom to send their message. And who better than he to know how a twist of bad luck and a little misplaced confidence in the information superhighway can plunge an ordinary life into unimagined chaos?