The email sent from a cyber cafe in Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar in Thyagarajanagar in Bangalore three days ago to a hotel in Jammu threatening to avenge the hanging of the 26/11 terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, has raised serious concerns among the police fraternity. Despite persistent raids conducted by the North, West and South division police, the threatening email was found sent from a cyber cafe located in Bangalore.
Commissioner of police BG Jyothiprakash Mirji has confirmed that the email was sent to a hotel in Jammu from Bangalore city.
“After we received the information we traced the email to a cyber cafe located in Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar in Thyagarajanagar police limits,” he said.
A little over three months ago, a top CBI official in the state had received a threat mail which was sent from a cyber cafe in Vijayanagar. It was only after that incident that joint commissioner of police (Crime-West), Pronab Mohanty, had ordered the jurisdictional police to conduct raids on cyber cafes in the city mainly to ensure that mischievous, threatening or terror-linked emails are not issued from any one of them.
The police conducted a total of 728 raids on cyber cafes. North police division conducted 275 raids; West police division, 205; and South police division, 248.
The police found more than 95% cyber cafes violating the guidelines laid down in accordance with the 2011-amended Information Technology Act, 2000. However, no cases were booked. But the city police issued notices to the cyber cafes found violating the guidelines. Interestingly, no case was registered by the city police even when the CBI officials received a threat email because the CBI police themselves wanted to investigate the case.
However, now Mirji has said, “We will start booking cases if the cyber cafes continue violating the IT Act guidelines.”
He said the person who sent the email to the hotel in Jammu has not yet been traced because the cyber cafe through which the miscreant sent mail has not maintained a register nor followed any other guideline as stipulated by the IT Act 2000.
DNA had also reported last month that not a single cyber cafe in the city was licensed to operate as one. A few weeks ago, DNA inquiries also revealed that all the cyber cafes in the city are running by obtaining just the trade licence from the health department of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and that there was no existence of any agency to regulate these cyber cafes. Senior police officials, therefore, admit that there is ample scope for miscreants or terror elements to exploit the situation to play mischief.
Meanwhile, sources in the police department said a team of Jammu police is in the city and has been questioning the cyber cafe owner (his identity has not been disclosed) to get details of the person who sent the threat email.
