
The website of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) was hacked on Friday morning, and the hackers put up messages demanding “death penalty for rapists” and protesting “politicisation of rape”. The messages remained on the NFAI website – nfai.gov.in – for the better part of the day and were removed only in the afternoon.
The website had been developed for NFAI by a private company, Runtime Solutions, last year, after the government organisation decided to make the website more attractive and user-friendly. It also shifted from its old domain name of nfaipune.nic.in to a new one.
The hackers changed the landing page of the website. They posted messages, as well as images containing messages in English and Hindi, against the “political and communal” angle of the multiple rape cases that have rocked the nation in the last few weeks.
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“This defacement is our anger against all political parties who are converting a rape case into a political issue. Dear politicians, please stop making rape into a caste-based issue and give death penalty to the culprit (sic),” read one of the messages.
“I’m Hindustan and I’m saddened but not ashamed,” read another message.
An official of Runtime Solutions said an audit of the website was being conducted to ascertain how it was hacked. “The website will be made more secure to avoid such incidents,” said the officer.
An NFAI official said after they realised that their website had been hacked, they informed the persons concerned, who removed the messages and images.
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