Korean national living illegally in India for 6 yrs held at Raxaul
Motihari: A joint team of police and immigration officials on Sunday arrested a
from a hotel at Raxaul while he was preparing to enter Nepal through the India-Nepal border.
Police after quizzing Kim Yang Dey produced him in a Motihari court on Monday and remanded him to jail custody.
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SDPO of Raxaul, Dhirendra Kumar, said Kim Yang was holding a passport of South Korea and had been living illegally in India for the last six years without valid documents. He had plans to return back to his country via Nepal. The police have lodged a case against him under Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 in Raxaul police station, he added.
During interrogation Kim Yang revealed that he came to India on an employment visa in 2017 and got a job as a project manager in an engineering firm at Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu.
His passport number was issued on Jan 9, 2017 and an Indian visa was given on Jan 20, 2017, whose validity expired on Jan 19, 2018. He, however, claimed that the visa was extended twice till 2021, but he could not provide any proof of this. Despite expiry of his visa, he was living illegally in India, said the SDPO.
He further said he met a woman from Manipur on social media and was in a live-in relationship with her since 2019. A girl was born out of their relationship on Feb 27, 2023. He claimed that he later married the Manipur girl and was living in India with her support.
The police, however, said legal proof of his marriage with the Manipur woman was not produced by him.
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Scroll.in
42 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
Assam teacher ‘pushed' into Bangladesh returns home two weeks after being detained
Assam teacher Khairul Islam, who had been 'pushed' into Bangladesh on May 27 after picked by state border police, has returned to his ancestral home in Morigaon. His family told Scroll that he had reached home on Thursday evening. 'I pray that Muslims in Assam can remain in peace,' Islam told Scroll from his home at Khandapukhuri village on Eid. As Scroll had reported, the 51-year-old former government teacher had been detained his home on the night of May 23 by the border police and forced out of Indian territory along the Bangladesh border four days later along with 13 others who were claimed to be 'infiltrators'. In a video posted on Facebook a Bangladeshi journalist from Bangladesh's Rangpur division on May 27, Khairul Islam Islam could standing in a field between Assam's South Salamar district and Bangladesh's Kurigram district 'I told the Assam police that I am a teacher and asked them to respect me,' Islam had told the journalist. 'My hands were tied like I was a thief and I was made to sit in the bus. Around 4 am, I reached here.' Until December, Islam had been a teacher in a government school. In 2016, he had been declared a foreigner by a tribunal. Two years later, the Gauhati High Court upheld the tribunal's decision. Islam spent two years in Assam's Matia detention centre and was released on bail in August 2020. The appeal to the Supreme Court challenging the High Court's decision is pending. On Saturday, he described his ordeal to Scroll. 'I was taken by the police and the same police brought me home,' he said. On May 23, the Morigaon police to the office of the superintendent of police. He was then moved to the Matia detention camp, Islam said. A few days later, the Border Security Force took him from the camp and released him the no-man's land between India and Bangladesh. 'I spent two days in the no man's land,' Islam said. The group was eventually taken to a camp of the Bangladesh Border Guard. he said. 'A few days later, the BGB brought seven of us in the border from where the police took me in custody,' Islam said. 'I was in Assam police custody since we crossed the border from Bangladesh to India and they released me on Thursday evening.' He added: 'I don't exactly remember how many days we were in three days,' he said. 'There was no sleep on our eyes during those days. How don't know how we spent those days. I don't even remember. Days and nights were same.' Islam alleged that he had been beaten in Matia camp when he refused to get into a bus that he knew was heading for the border. '…I'm an Indian so why would I go to Bangladesh?' he said. 'When I told them that, they hit me inside the Matia Detention camp.' After Islam was picked up, his family had filed an application before the Morigaon superintendent of police seeking his release, attaching all the relevant documents. 'The SP had assured that he would be back within two-four days,' Islam's wife Rita Khanam said. Islam's family is happy that he is home on Eid but Islam said no other Indian should face the ordeal he had been put through. 'I'm saying that an Indian should not be harassed like this and sent to no man's land by their own country like this,' Islam said. 'We are not Bangladeshi. We are swadesi. We have all the documents. They should check this and they should verify this before doing such acts. This is injustice and there will be judgement for this one day.' 'Malik ekojn ase,' Islam said. The Almighty will give us justice.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Operation Social Media: Digital dogs of war bark loud, bite little in Pakistan's info ops
'Indian forces wave the white flag!' "Karachi captured!" "Pakistan Army Chief arrested!" by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Moose Approaches Girl At Bus Stop In Tamil Nadu - Watch What Happens Happy in Shape Undo None of it was true. All of it went viral. As India and Pakistan teetered on the edge of open warfare this May following a gruesome terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 civilians, a parallel battle unfolded, not on land or in air, but in the boundless terrain of cyberspace. Live Events This was not merely a war of missiles and drones; it was an orchestrated campaign of perception warfare, fuelled by a deluge of misinformation and psychological operations designed to distort, distract and destabilise. This is how 'Operation Social Media' unfolded -- an invisible front that exposed how deeply disinformation can influence modern conflict, and how India, despite facing a sophisticated hybrid threat, sought to maintain both operational focus and digital hygiene. Also Read: China, Pakistan 'launch' Operation Disinformation on Rafale after India's terror strikes When bots go off louder than bombs The crisis began with a terror attack at a popular tourist spot in Kashmir. The assault bore the fingerprints of Pakistan-based terror outfits, prompting New Delhi to launch Operation Sindoor , a series of precision strikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) on May 7. Almost immediately, unverified claims began saturating social media. According to reports from The Guardian and The Washington Post, X (formerly Twitter) became a hotbed of false triumphs, premature victory laps, and fictionalised skirmishes. Among the most viral, but entirely fabricated, narratives were: Indian jets capturing Lahore and Karachi. Arrest of Pakistan's army chief and an alleged military coup. A Pakistani cyberattack disabling India's power grid. India bombing Afghan territory or surrendering in key battlefronts. Doctored videos, repurposed war clips, and even footage from video games like Arma 3 flooded social media platforms during the India-Pakistan standoff, giving rise to a parallel narrative war. These posts were amplified by a mix of anonymous accounts, official handles, and even journalists acting on unverified inputs. Independent internet observatory NetBlocks reported that 65% of these viral false posts originated from IP addresses linked to Pakistan, while another 20% came from untraceable bot accounts. According to the Washington-based non-profit think tank, the Centre for the Study of Organized Hate, 'X emerged as the primary hub for both misinformation and disinformation.' The think tank analysed 437 such posts and found that 179, or nearly 41%, originated from verified accounts, which are often perceived as credible due to their blue-check status. These included posts by politicians, influencers, media personalities, and retired military officials. 'What was particularly alarming,' the report noted, 'was the credibility lent to these falsehoods by high-profile sources.' Despite the scale of this disinformation, only 73 posts, just 17%, were flagged by X's Community Notes, the platform's crowd-sourced fact-checking feature. This, the think tank argued, pointed to a serious lapse in content moderation at a time of high geopolitical tension. Raqib Hameed Naik, director of the think tank, described the information war as 'a global trend in hybrid warfare'. 'This wasn't ordinary nationalist chest-thumping,' said Joyojeet Pal of the University of Michigan. 'This had the potential to push two nuclear-armed neighbours to the brink.' Pakistan's playbook The social media campaign didn't begin with Operation Sindoor; it was already underway. On April 25, days before the Indian Air Force strike, India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had announced the banning of 16 YouTube channels and several Instagram accounts for spreading 'provocative and communally sensitive content.' Of these, six were Pakistan-based and ten operated from within India, with a combined viewership of over 680 million. A key inflection point came when Pakistan lifted its year-long ban on X during the peak of the crisis. According to minutes from a Pakistani Senate committee meeting, this move was deliberate and strategic, intended to enable Islamabad to 'participate in the narrative war.' Also Read: Lies, now open sourced: India-Pakistan conflict puts spotlight on open-source intelligence and credibility problem NetBlocks confirmed that access to X in Pakistan was restored precisely as tensions with India escalated, giving Pakistani agencies and allied influencers a wide window to flood the platform with misleading and often provocative posts. In the aftermath of the operation, and as misinformation swirled on social media, India's Press Information Bureau (PIB) Fact Check division stepped in to debunk dozens of viral claims. These included: Videos from Lebanon's 2020 explosion being shared as missile strikes on Indian cities. Drone footage from Jalandhar fires framed as attacks. Game footage falsely portraying Pakistani military success. Recycled images from other conflict zones passed off as Indian casualties. Together, these examples offer a window into the scale, coordination, and intent behind the disinformation campaign, aimed not just at misleading the public but also at distorting the global perception of India's military and political posture. Inside Pakistan's covert spy ring In a related espionage probe, Indian intelligence uncovered a Pakistan-backed operation recruiting social media influencers as spies. Naushaba Shahzad Masood, known as 'Madam N', runs Jaiyana Travels and Tourism in Lahore. She was building a network of 500 spies inside India, focusing on Hindu and Sikh YouTubers like Jyoti Malhotra and Jasbir Singh. In six months, Naushaba arranged travel for about 3,000 Indians and 1,500 expatriates to Pakistan, fast-tracking visas through direct contacts at the Pakistani High Commission in Delhi. She also managed Sikh and Hindu pilgrimage tours with the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), charging inflated fees that funded ISI propaganda. Financial trails include Naushaba's phone number found on arrested spies' devices and two Pakistani bank accounts linked to transfers from India. Her network recruits through agents operating in major Indian cities, including Delhi. Open-source intelligence: Boon or bane? The situation also highlighted the double-edged nature of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT). Originally conceived to empower citizens through satellite images, open data, and social media monitoring, OSINT's decentralised model became a tool for mass manipulation. 'Anyone with an internet connection could now pose as an OSINT expert,' observed an analysis published by ET. The danger lies in viral misinformation being passed off as expert assessments, especially when retweeted by influencers and news outlets under pressure for real-time content. Newsrooms under fire Some Indian newsrooms too fell for the deluge of fake news. According to The Washington Post, in one case, a journalist reportedly received a WhatsApp message, allegedly from a public broadcaster, claiming that Pakistan's army chief had been arrested. Within minutes, this falsehood became prime-time 'breaking news.' Speaking to The Post, Former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao described the atmosphere as one of 'hypernationalism' and 'parallel reality,' cautioning that the lack of authoritative government briefings created a vacuum often filled by speculation. But not everyone was misled. Also Read: India's Press Information Bureau, along with a 24/7 monitoring centre set up by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, worked to counter misinformation in real time. Fact-checks were issued, social media handles were flagged, and broadcasters were warned for violating verification norms. Cyber Frontline: 1.5 million attacks, but only 150 breaches While social media churned with false claims, the real-time cyber threat was no less intense. According to Maharashtra Cyber, over 1.5 million cyber attacks were launched against Indian infrastructure by seven Pakistan-allied Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups. The barrage of cyberattacks not only came from the neighbouring country but from Bangladesh and the Middle Eastern region. Pro-Pakistan hacker collectives such as APT 36 (also known as Transparent Tribe), Pakistan Cyber Force, and Team Insane PK launched a coordinated series of cyberattacks in the days surrounding the crisis. Their arsenal included malware campaigns, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, GPS spoofing attempts, and website defacements aimed at sowing panic and disrupting public trust in India's digital infrastructure. According to officials familiar with the matter, India faced over 1.5 million intrusion attempts during this period. However, only 150 attacks were successful, a tiny fraction. Importantly, claims that the hackers had penetrated Mumbai's airport systems or Election Commission portals were found to be baseless. Addressing reporters, a senior official of Maharashtra Cyber debunked claims of hackers stealing data from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, hacking aviation and municipal systems, and targeting the Election Commission website. "The probe discovered that cyber attacks on (government websites in) India decreased after India-Pakistan ceased hostilities, but not fully stopped. These attacks continue from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Morocco, and Middle Eastern countries," he said. The Indian government's 'Road of Sindoor' report, a classified cyber threat assessment, showed these attacks were part of a coordinated hybrid warfare strategy involving both digital and psychological warfare. India's response While the information war raged online, Indian armed forces maintained disciplined silence and strategic clarity. Official statements were sparse, but targeted. Operation Sindoor focused solely on dismantling terrorist infrastructure, confirmed in a press conference by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, who clarified that India did not target civilian installations. Behind the scenes, India's cyber defence grid was activated, fact-checking units expanded, and social media protocols for military updates tightened. The government also advised citizens to avoid unverified content and rely only on official sources. AI fact-checkers As the misinformation torrent intensified, social media users increasingly turned to AI chatbots for verification, only to find more confusion and falsehoods. Platforms like xAI's Grok, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Google's Gemini became common go-to tools for instant fact-checking amid the crisis. 'Hey @Grok, is this true?' became a viral plea on Elon Musk's platform X, reflecting the surge in users seeking quick debunks. However, these AI assistants often propagated misinformation themselves. Grok, under renewed criticism for inserting far-right conspiracy theories into unrelated answers, misidentified old video footage from Sudan's Khartoum airport as missile strikes on Pakistan's Nur Khan airbase during the conflict. Similarly, unrelated fire footage from Nepal was wrongly claimed as Pakistani military retaliation. McKenzie Sadeghi of the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard warned, 'The growing reliance on Grok as a fact-checker comes as X and other major tech companies have scaled back investments in human fact-checkers. Our research has repeatedly found that AI chatbots are not reliable sources for news and information, particularly when it comes to breaking news.' The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University found that AI chatbots were 'generally bad at declining to answer questions they couldn't answer accurately, offering incorrect or speculative answers instead.' For instance, AFP fact-checkers in Uruguay asked Google's Gemini about an AI-generated image of a woman; it confirmed the image's authenticity but fabricated details about her identity and location. Truth is the first casualty, but not the last word The digital front of the India-Pakistan standoff reveals the complex landscape of modern warfare, where victory is measured not just in ground gained but in narrative controlled. Yet despite the storm of falsehoods, India's response, though understated, was layered, methodical, and largely effective. As the lines between social media warfare and statecraft blur, it's clear that the next great conflict won't just be fought with missiles, but with memes, metadata, and misinformation.
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
Indian-origin man accused of masterminding illegal drug, tobacco ring in Sydney
A Sydney-based man of Indian origin has been accused of heading a sophisticated international drug and tobacco trafficking syndicate that spanned several continents and used legitimate freight channels to move illicit cargo into Australia. Gurvindar Singh, 42, is at the centre of a two-year investigation by Australia's Multi Agency Strike Team (MAST), which comprises the NSW Police, Australian Federal Police (AFP), Australian Border Force, NSW Crime Commission, AUSTRAC, the ATO and other agencies. He faces multiple charges, including five counts of importing a commercial quantity of controlled drugs and illegal tobacco, as well as offences relating to proceeds of crime and directing a criminal group. If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of life in prison. Authorities allege that Singh masterminded the import of 50 kg of cocaine hidden in cement bags from Panama, 280 kg of liquid methamphetamine shipped from Canada, and over 20 million illicit cigarettes brought into the country from the United Arab Emirates using a freight company based in Punchbowl, a suburb in southwestern Sydney. According to news portal Australia Today, the first major breakthrough came in August 2024, when investigators intercepted a liquid meth consignment arriving from Vancouver. Surveillance teams tracked it from port storage to a covert cooling and extraction site in Riverstone, Sydney's northwest, leading to the arrest of two men. This, police say, eventually led them to identify Singh as the suspected ringleader. More evidence emerged in January 2025, when customs officials flagged irregularities in a container from the UAE. Three separate consignments of illegal cigarettes had already been imported through the Punchbowl freight firm allegedly linked to Singh's network. Police estimate that the illicit cigarette sales alone netted him at least AUD 443,000. Last month, investigators executed a series of early-morning raids involving over 150 officers across properties in Wetherill Park, Punchbowl and nearby suburbs. Singh was arrested outside a private residence near a police van, moments after stepping out of a vehicle. Two Canadian nationals of Indian origin—24-year-old Aman Kang and 31-year-old Mani Singh Dhaliwal—were also arrested. The police allege they were recruited by Singh to recover and distribute the cocaine shipment. Both men were denied bail and charged with possessing a commercial quantity of drugs and participating in a criminal group. A seventh suspect was intercepted at Sydney Airport while attempting to board an international flight, the police added. Singh allegedly relied on encrypted messaging apps, port insiders, and shell companies to facilitate his operations. In one intercepted conversation, cited both by ABC News and Australia Today, Singh was allegedly heard exclaiming 'It's fake' when he realised the police had swapped out the 50 kg of cocaine with an inert substance prior to a handover. At a press conference following the arrests, AFP Detective Superintendent Peter Fogarty said the syndicate exploited access to legitimate logistics and transport firms to subvert border controls. 'This was not a small-scale operation,' Fogarty said. 'This was an enterprise worth tens of millions of dollars, spanning multiple continents.' Apart from the large quantities of contraband recovered, vehicles, digital devices, cash, and financial records believed to be linked to money laundering were seized. Financial crime investigators are now probing the movement of funds through what they describe as a web of shell companies. At Parramatta Bail Court on Sunday, Singh's lawyer, Ahmed Dib, requested bail, citing the accused's poor health, family responsibilities, and his willingness to offer his home as surety. However, Magistrate Josephine Carling denied the request, stating that the serious nature of the charges and Singh's international links posed a significant flight risk. 'Given the volume of illegal tobacco and narcotics purportedly imported, the risk to community safety is substantial,' she observed. Singh and his co-accused are scheduled to appear at the Downing Centre Local Court on July 31, where they are expected to be formally arraigned. The case has triggered renewed political debate in Australia around tobacco excise policy. As Australia Today reported, NSW Premier Chris Minns cited the operation as evidence that the country's high tobacco taxes are fuelling a booming black market, calling on the federal government to re-evaluate the excise regime. 'Our legitimate tobacconists cannot compete with criminals selling cigarettes for a fraction of the cost,' he said. Opposition Leader Mark Speakman, however, argued that the solution lies in better enforcement, not lowering taxes. Investigators have warned that additional arrests may follow as they analyse financial trails and digital evidence recovered during the raids. They say the crackdown has dealt a serious blow to transnational criminal networks operating in Australia and are hopeful it will lead to more robust anti-smuggling enforcement measures.
