Cyber cell admits to failure in NE violence,exodus case

It may be recalled that in August last year,a large number of residents from the North Eastern states staying in Pune — mostly workers and students — had left the city en mass to return home for fear of violent attacks. Police investigation revealed that the fear was generated by inflammatory messages that were being circulated among pepple in days prior to exodus.

The clips had used disturbing images of violence and dead bodies that reportedly had some links to riots in Myanmar. The SMSs,however,that were sent around had wrongly linked people from the Northeastern states to them due to their mongoloid features.

Primary investigation had led the police to arrest four persons from Pune for sending and spreading the SMSs. A teacher from Mumbai was also arrested for having allegedly uploaded the video ‘Burma Riots,Thrilling Pictures 2012’ on youtube.com.

In the days hat followed,many YouTube videos,Facebook accounts and Blogs were removed from public domain on Pune police’s request. In this case,police investigation was mainly based on information received from social networking sites.

Cases were registered at the Lashkar and Kondhwa police stations under Section 153(a) of IPC for inciting negative feeling between different communities,as well as Section 66 of Information Technology Act.

A senior officer with the cyber crime cell said: “We have now reached a dead end in this probe. We arrested a person who had uploaded the clip on YouTube,which was later circulated as MMS. But more than 15 such videos were uploaded from Pakistan. Though we have traced the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses,there is a very lengthy process for further action and we have no chance of a breakthrough.”

The officer further said,“In case of the SMSs,we have arrested people who had forwarded these SMSs in bulk. But we have not been able to find out from where these SMSs originated. We do not have the means to reach them. So in case of SMSes too,we have reached the dead end.”

“We have made arrests in the case. The persecution will begin after we get an approval from the government,which is required since Section 153 has been invoked,” Deputy commissioner of police (Cyber Crime and Economic Offences Wing) Sanjay Shindesss said.