JOIN USDJ's Wi-Fi hacked by militants to send terror email
Security agencies, working in tandem with the Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai police, said suspected IM operatives hacked into an unsecured Wi-fi connection registered in the name of a Mumbai DJ Akhil Talreja.
The email was composed on December 6, a day before the blast, and, significantly, on the day the Babri Masjid was destroyed in Ayodhya eight years ago. It says, “Indian Mujahideen attribute this attack to December 6... the loss of their beloved Babri Masjid.”
Akhil and his father were picked up on Wednesday for questioning in Navi Mumbai in connection with the email but were later released.
The five-page email sent by suspected IM terrorists was sent using the unsecured Wi-Fi of Airtel Broadband that Talreja used, Crime Branch sources here said.
According to Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjeev Dayal, once the email was traced, the police launched an operation to hunt down the sender(s). In the past, suspected IM terrorists have used unsecured Wi-Fi conncections in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai to send emails to media houses claiming responsibility for blasts set off by them.
Crime Branch sources said there was some evidence to suggest that the Varanasi blast and the Jama Masjid shootout three months ago were perpetrated by the IM. They suspect that the team was groomed in Uttar Pradesh Azamgarh district widely believed to be a hotbed of terrorist recruitment.
Over the past two years, the IM is suspected to have sent emails after three terror attacks: the July 2008 serial blasts in Ahmedabad, which was traced to the apartment of an American national in Navi Mumbai, followed by another email a month later that was traced to Khalsa College in Matunga, Mumbai.
The email sent minutes after the September 2008 serial blasts in Delhi was traced to a private company in Chembur, Mumbai. This year, after the Jama Masjid attack, the email was found to have originated in Mumbai. In all the cases, the IM sent the emails mail within minutes of the attack. After Tuesday’s Varanasi blast, there was a half-hour delay.
Tracking the emails has met with success at least in one case: In October 2008, tracking the emails and the senders led to the arrest of 20 IM operatives in different leadership positions within the terror group. Many of them are software professionals and are in jail awaiting trial.