Indian intelligence agencies have reason to believe that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) used the formidable cadre of terror outfits like the Jamaat-e-Islaami, Simi, Indian Mujahideen and even Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami in launching the “biggest ever cyber attack” on the country.
According to highly placed intelligence sources, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), along with some Central intelligence agencies, had on August 18 tracked the first of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to Pakistan from which inflammatory content was being uploaded on the site. By the evening of August 18, at least 76 such URLs were tracked and all in Pakistan.
Indian agencies have the technology to track the specific computer or a mobile handset from where a clip, MMS or an SMS has originated.
In this particular case also, the source of the objectionable content has been traced to Pakistan. The investigating agencies are extremely tightlipped about the exact location or cities from where this material was uploaded as follow-up investigations are still in progress.
But sources claim there is information to suggest that the ISI initially asked the Jamaat and HuJI cadre in Pakistan to send objectionable morphed and doctored footage as well as SMSes to the Simi and Indian Mujahideen cadre in India for further distribution. The ISI, sources added, obviously did not want itself to be traced as the source of this content.
“The ISI obviously knew that Indian agencies will eventually get to the bottom of this. So instead of being upfront about it they used this indirect channel to spread communal hatred,” a senior intelligence official said.
It is a known fact for quite sometime now that the ISI has been training cadre of known terror outfits in use of computers and software. In fact, sources claim that both Simi and Indian Mujahideen are experts in using computers.
This is precisely the reason that it was not easy to trace the email sent by Indian Mujahideen after their serial blasts between 2007 and 2008.
“The Indian Mujahideen operatives were so tech-savvy that they even used proxy servers to send the mails after the blast as the exact source of the material could not be traced. Thus, initially some of these computers were tracked to Australia and Europe,” a police official remarked.