Online Trolling
Women's commission condemns trolling of Pahalgam attack victim's wife after her appeal for peace
Harassing a woman for her ideological expression was 'not acceptable in any form', said the statutory body.
Scroll Staff
· An hour ago
'Targeted for Muslim identity;': Academicians back Jindal professor facing FIR for lecture on dating
Sameena Dalwai delivered the talk on September 23 that allegedly caused discomfort among some students as profiles of their friends also popped up on screen.
Scroll Staff
· Jan 07, 2024 · 08:08 pm
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The Hindu
13 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Behind the 7/11 acquittals, a legal cell which worked quietly and tirelessly for 19 years
At late Shahid Azmi's behest, the cell which started giving legal aid to Muslims, represented select accused in several key terror cases, including the Akshardham attack, Malegaon 2006 blasts, Godhra railway burning, and Mumbai triple blasts, now sees one of its biggest victories. Tucked away in the narrow bylanes of Mumbai's crowded Bhendi Bazar Dongri area is the office of Jamiat Ulama-e-Maharashtra, the State chapter of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. 'Madam, take a right opposite the Saboo Siddique hospital. In the first lane, leave the first iron gate and enter from the second one,' a shopkeeper tells me as I try to find my way through the maze amid the rush and the slush during the Mumbai outpour. Inside the 700 square feet office of one of the oldest Muslim organisations of India, established over a century ago, is the legal cell. This small room has provided hope, courage and justice to scores of Muslim men who have allegedly been wrongly arrested in false cases. And one of their biggest victories came this week when the Bombay High Court acquitted 12 accused in the 11 July, 2006, serial bomb blasts in Mumbai which had killed 187 people and injured over 800. The prosecution 'utterly failed' to establish their guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the Bombay High Court observed, setting aside the 2015 judgment of the Special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court, which had awarded death penalty to five and life imprisonment to seven others. Pending hearing, the judgement has since been stayed by the apex court, so it is not used as a precedence in other MCOCA cases, even as it will have no bearing on the acquittal of the 12 accused. Yet, six of those acquitted have already written to the Jamiat, seeking legal help for further hearings in the apex court, after notices are issued. Also read: Death sentence was for taking the last step: MCOCA court 'We aren't celebrating. We are relieved that there is justice for those who were wrongly implicated in this case. But there is no justice for the victims as yet. We still don't know who committed this heinous crime,' Shahid Nadeem, legal advisor, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind legal cell, says. Sitting amid a printer-copier machine, a wooden cupboard, his work table is full of files and folders with legal documents and petitions. A CCTV camera perched behind him monitors the small cabin. The legal cell provides free legal aid to approximately 500 Muslim men, including those accused in terror cases and booked under the stringent POTA (now repealed), MCOCA and UAPA. They have so far secured acquittals of some accused in the Akshardham temple attack case, in Malegaon 2006 blasts case, in the 7/11 serial train blasts case, among other cases. In 75 cases across the country so far, Jamaiat's legal cell has been able to secure the release of 318 accused in the last 19 years. 'So far, 227 accused have got bail in 52 cases across India,' says Nadeem. Shahid Azmi's role The cell started providing legal aid to Muslims after Shahid Azmi, a lawyer and human rights activist who was murdered in 2010, indicated to the Jamiat that innocent Muslim men were being implicated in the 2006 train blasts case. 'We had a legal cell before that. But that was functional primarily after independence when there were custodian issues about properties after the partition. Maulana Hizdur Rehman Seohari, who was also a parliamentarian, had taken lead in it. Jamiat was established in the year 1919, and during its participation in the freedom struggle movement, it had opposed the two-nation theory, partition of the country on religious basis. After independence, the organisation decided to withdraw from electoral politics and focus on social service instead. 'In 2006, there was terror atmosphere in the country. At that time, Hazrat Maulana Arshad Madani, who is currently the Jamiat Ulema president, told the Maharashtra unit that we should help those innocent Muslims who are poor, who can't afford judicial expenses,' says Maulana Haleem Ullah Qasmi, General Secretary of the Maharashtra wing of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. 'This was the first case which came to us. Shahid Azmi told us that those who were arrested were daily wage labourers, and should be helped. We first went to the Supreme Court which sent us back to the trial court,' he adds. Selection process The Jamiat does not provide everyone who approaches them. 'We verify their antecedents first, and provide legal aid only if our verification process shows that the person is wrongfully arrested, and is in need of help,' says Nadeem. 'When someone comes to us, we take an application from them. That is how this case (7/11 train blasts) came to us,' says Maulana Maulana Haleem Ullah Qasmi. 'The selection process is quite stringent. When someone applies for legal aid, we read their charge sheet, and we confirm their background and whether they are history sheeters. That's why we don't provide legal aid to everyone who approaches us,' says Nadeem. Systemic accountability After the Bombay High Court verdict, the legal cell representatives call for the accountability of the system. 'In this case, from the beginning, the agencies have been errant. Their wrong deeds have come out now. These agencies should be made accountable. The real culprits should be arrested. Instead of working hard to do that, the government has now appealed in the Supreme Court,' says Maulana Qasmi. Raising the issue of justice for the family members of the victims, he says, 'Somone must have committed this dasdardly attack. The victims should get justice too. Agencies should enquire again and bring the real culprits to book. This case is incomplete without that. Justice is not yet served. The innocents were nabbed. We shudder at the pain of the victims. The accused should be arrested and brought to book. Justive will be served only then,' he says.
New Indian Express
43 minutes ago
- New Indian Express
CPM will continue in power: Congress leader Palode Ravi in leaked phone conversation
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Congress leadership in Kerala has found itself in a tight spot after a phone conversation allegedly involving Thiruvananthapuram District Congress president Palode Ravi was leaked, in which the senior leader stated that the party would come third in the upcoming local body polls. In the conversation with a local leader, Ravi is heard saying that the CPM will continue in power in the state and that the Congress will become a persona non grata after the Assembly elections. In his eight-minute-long conversation with local leader Jaleel of Pullampara, the former Deputy Speaker came down heavily on the lack of mutual cooperation within the party. At a time when the Congress has made elaborate preparations and taken comprehensive measures for the local body polls, the remarks by the senior leader have put the party on the defensive. In a detailed analysis with the local leader, the former Deputy Speaker allegedly observed that the Congress will cease to exist after the panchayat elections. People from the Muslim community will shift their support to the CPM and other parties, warned Ravi.
India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
Hacker army: Why India cannot let its guard down
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated July 28, 2025)Twenty-first century warfare isn't limited to ground, air and naval forces. With vital domains like defence, finance and communications dependent on sets of interconnected information systems on the internet, attacking these can grievously impair a nation's war-making capabilities. Cyber warfare has thus emerged as a low-cost weapon of modern conflict and cyber security is now an important factor in the national security matrix of every state. As in Russia's war on Ukraine and the recent Israel-Iran war, this whole spectrum played out during the recent face-off between India and from the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 and continuing through Operation Sindoor and the four-day conflict between the two neighbours (May 7-10), India faced an unrelenting wave of cyberattacks, primarily by Pakistani groups backed by Islamabad and Beijing, but also from hacker groups in Turkey, Bangladesh, Malaysia and West Asian countries. According to Indian government sources, these groups launched over 1.5 million cyber attacks targeting a wide swathe of India's critical infrastructure spanning defence, power, telecom, finance and transportation during this period. In a cabinet meeting in early June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi put the number of attacks at 100 million. Predictably, India's military-industrial infrastructure came in for special attention, while the power ministry confirmed that over 200,000 cyber attacks on the Indian electricity grid were foiled between May 7-10. Their modus operandi comprised the full repertoire of hackers' mischief: website defacements, Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks (aiming to overwhelm and impair a target server/ network), malware distribution (using viruses to infect systems and gain control) and phishing (use of deceptive emails to extract information). Their cumulative goal: to steal defence information, particularly missile technology, and to undermine vital sectors. Happily, Indian cyber-security agencies, including the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the Defence Cyber Agency and the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) successfully thwarted most attacks, with a mere 150 out of the 1.5 million attempts succeeding. Though cyber assets of government institutions, commercial enterprises and the better protected defence organisations attracted 28 per cent, 22 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively, of all attacks, the education (7 per cent), finance (4 per cent) and transport (3 per cent) sectors were not spared. In retaliation, Indian hacking groups took the attack to Pakistan, targeting and breaching critical digital assets of its military and government. However, India's victory in repulsing these attacks was not absolute. Websites of several Indian military, defence production and defence research institutes, including the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), were successfully targeted. Clearly, more needs to be done to beef up India's cyber-security, as attacks on Indian cyber space Wig, CEO of Innefu Labs, an agency that works closely with the ministry of defence (MoD), agrees that the attacks are a clarion call for the country's defence mechanism. 'These invasions are no longer just for ransom. They target critical infrastructures, steal sensitive data and attempt to disrupt essential services,' he says. BARRAGE OF ATTACKSJaijit Bhattacharya, cyber-security expert and president of the Delhi-based Centre for Digital Economy Policy (C-Dep), says that the Pahalgam terrorist attack served as the ignition point for the hybrid war—an orchestrated blend of terrorism and cyber aggression—unleashed against India, signalled by a storm of attempted cyber intrusions and disruptions. Servers of the MoD, the Election Commission and key financial institutions were targeted, and cyber-security agencies like CERT-In and the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which includes the NCIIPC, raised immediate alarms of an 'ongoing coordinated offensive'. 'The implications were serious—national security, economic stability and civil trust in digital systems were under siege,' Bhattacharya adds. Pakistan was the primary actor, while Malaysia and Turkey played subtler roles, he points India's cyber agencies found that Pakistani group APT36 (a.k.a. Transparent Tribe), escalated phishing campaigns targeting armed forces personnel. Malware-laced documents mimicking internal communication were used to try and exfiltrate sensitive information, but were thwarted. However, its hackers gained access to data of the Military Engineer Services and the Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses. Most worryingly, confidential data, including upgrade plans for T-90 tanks and certain projects under development by the DRDO was put on sale on the dark web. APT 36 is believed to behind this intrusion Pakistani groups like Team Insane Pakistan and HOAX1337 breached and defaced websites of the Assam Rifles, the Department of Atomic Energy and Armoured Vehicles Nigam Limited, forcing them to go offline for a few days. The Pakistan Cyber Force hacked the Rajasthan education department's website, posting false claims about the Pahalgam terror hacktivist groups like RipperSec launched social media propaganda campaigns to amplify anti-India narratives and targeted the vice president of India's website, while Turkish groups like the Turk Hack team carried out DDoS attacks on Indian banking websites and media portals. The Iranian hacker group Vulture carried out DDoS attacks on websites of CERT-In, the National Testing Agency, the office of the President of India and the Prime Minister's Bangladeshi government denied involvement, but Indian cyber agencies traced ransomware and hacktivist attacks to hacker forums in Dhaka and Chittagong. Groups like Mysterious Bangladesh targeted government portals like those of the CBI, Election Commission and BSNL. It is suspected that non-state actors with ideological alignment to Pakistan were operating from cyber onslaught was more strategic. It conducted advanced persistent threats (APTs)—sophisticated and sustained cyber attacks that lodge themselves in a network—through groups like APT41 and Mustang Panda, attempting to disable India's power grids, logistics chains and telecommunications networks. A major concern was the attempted breach into India's railway network. Experts believe that Beijing's objective was to probe India's cyber resilience during a potential military decentralised group called R3V0XAnonymous launched abortive DDoS attacks on the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs and the Income Tax Department. Sensing the danger early on, the Bombay Stock Exchange issued a cyber-security advisory on May 7 following warnings from CERT-In about ongoing cyber threats targeting India's banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) distribution networks in western India were also probed by malware variants, prompting precautionary shutdowns in some areas. On May 10, the official website of the Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation in Maharashtra was hacked. INDIA'S RESPONSEadvertisementFacing attacks on every domain, India's cyber armies—independent and state-backed—launched thousands of attacks on Pakistan. Indian hacking groups like Indian Cyber Force, Indian Cyber Defender, WhiteHorse and Cyber Warriors India claimed successful attacks on crucial Pakistani infrastructure. India's elite cyber unit under the Defence Cyber Agency—a tri-service command of the Indian military—was mobilised and retaliatory digital strikes were carried out on critical assets. This included takedowns of social media troll farms, disruption of servers and digital forensics operations to trace and expose the origin of attacks. Pakistan's NCERT (National Cyber Emergency Response Team) was forced to issue a red alert for phishing targeting its organisations. Websites of Pakistan's Sindh Police and its airport systems were breached most of India's robust response was defensive in nature. It involved tripling cyber defence teams, deploying real-time intelligence-sharing and activating a joint task force led by the Data Security Council of India, coordinating government, private firms and industry bodies. Measures included temporarily blocking vulnerable financial sites, issuing CERT-In alerts and monitoring suspicious command servers. According to Bhattacharya, the Indian government activated a multi-pronged cyber defence operation. The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), under the Union ministry of home affairs, spearheaded counter-hack operations, reportedly taking down over 150 hostile command-and-control servers. India's proactive approach and coordination at the macro level helped it withstand the dynamic threat landscape in this virtual cyber threats ever present and evolving, India cannot let its guard down. To effectively counter Chinese cyber attacks, Pakistani hacktivists and other hacking groups, India must expand AI-powered threat detection and real-time incident response systems and improve cyber-security training. Increased investment in quantum-resistant encryption, cloud security and resilient infrastructure for all vital sectors are says India has responded to growing cyber threats by fortifying its cyber defence through CERT-In and NCIIPC, indigenous cyber-security solutions and collaboration between government and private sectors. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 has strengthened regulatory frameworks, while partnerships with Singapore, Japan and the UK have enhanced threat intelligence-sharing. India's determination to protect its digital infrastructure will shape the future of cyber-security in the to India Today Magazine- EndsMust Watch
