As the city’s largely peace-loving Muslim community celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr on Monday, the 26-year-old cyber-sleuth Anees Pasha, who, along with six known accomplices had sent off the threats that sparked the panicked exodus of over 30,000 north-easterners from the city, has shocked interrogators by revealing the reach and depth of the cyber-terror network. Pasha, owner of New Fonotech, a mobile repair shop in Koramangala VII block, who ironically helped police retrieve data from stolen phones, and is now in police custody for sending SMSs aimed at inciting communal hatred has revealed to police that he got the SMSs from his “friends’’, whose homes he has identified.
T. Suneel Kumar, Additional Commissioner of Police (law and order) speaking to Deccan Chronicle, refused to elaborate, except to say that the network of anti-national elements ran at least 10-15 layers deep, and that the arrests of the persons who sent the SMS to Pasha would yield other names which would eventually lead to the mastermind who drafted the threats. A massive manhunt is underway to track down his ‘friends’, Mr Kumar said.