Most doctored content on websites uploaded from across border: Cops

The probe into the August 11 Azad Maidan riot has gained further momentum with the Mumbai Police Crime Branch now receiving replies from social networking websites and other online platforms on which provocative content about alleged atrocities against Muslims had been uploaded.

The probe into the August 11 Azad Maidan riot has gained further momentum with the Mumbai Police Crime Branch now receiving replies from social networking websites and other online platforms on which provocative content about alleged atrocities against Muslims had been uploaded. Crime Branch sources said some of the websites on which morphed and doctored images were uploaded had told the police that a majority of the content had come from neighbouring countries.

The police are now contemplating approaching a local court to issue Letters Rogatory (LRs) to the countries from where the content was uploaded to get details of the persons whose internet protocol (IP) addresses were used for uploading it. An LR is a correspondence between a local court and a foreign court to facilitate police investigations in the foreign country.

Investigations revealed that several groups had cropped up online shortly after the Myanmar violence,with users asking other members to do something about the violence.

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We had written to various social networking websites a few days after the Azad Maidan riots when our probe revealed that they had been used to spread the message of the gathering. We asked the websites to pull down content which we felt was inflammatory and also asked for details of persons who commented on inflammatory content and shared provocative pictures of atrocities, said a Crime Branch officer.

We got a reply from various sites stating that only some of the content had been uploaded from certain pockets of India,a bulk of such matter happened from neighbouring countries. They told us that most of the images shared and the subsequent comments were from the other side of the border, said the officer.

According to Crime Branch sources,the police then sent a letter to the websites asking for the locations of the users who had posted the content. The locations which have been provided have revealed that a vast number of persons are not from India. Locations which we have got suggest that the shares and posts were from outside the country, said the officer.

We are in the process of deciding on our next course of action,and are considering sending LRs with details of the users, said the officer.

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