The Hindu : National : College teacher, students among 11 picked up for e-mail threat

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Sunday, Dec 18, 2005

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National

College teacher, students among 11 picked up for e-mail threat

P. Sudhakar

No clear picture emerges as yet The police want to ascertain whether the arrested have links with the banned organisation, SIMI

TIRUNELVELI: The police team, which is probing the e-mail threat to Parliament, has picked up 11 persons, including four women, a faculty member and two students of a Palayamkottai-based college for interrogation. Police say that the college teacher's mobile phone was used for sending bomb threats to Parliament and the American consulates in the country.

Those who have been picked-up include Shaik Sindha Madhar, who was temporarily handling Tamil classes in the college in the absence of a lecturer, Fakruddin of Samathanapuram and Tabera Alam of Melapalayam, both computer programmers at the college and Abbas and Gnaniyar, students.

The police want to ascertain whether the arrested have links with the banned organisation, SIMI.

The police have asked the receptionist and attendants of the Internet browsing centres from where the threatening messages were sent to appear for investigation.

Though interrogation has continued for more than 24 hours, no clear picture has emerged so far. The investigations are carried out by a band of top police officials, the Intelligence Bureau and the Cyber Crime Branch personnel.

Based on the information provided by Selwyn, proprietor of an Internet cafe on Thiruvananthapuram High Road, Murugankurichi in Palayamkottai, the police secured nine others, who were taken to the Armed Reserve Police Grounds for questioning, initially carried out by the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Vijaykumar, and the Superintendent of Police, Anand Kumar Somani.

Based on the information collected during interrogation, the Cyber Crime Branch team led by the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Jayalakshmi, which arrived here on Saturday, is trying to electronically create the faces of the culprits.

The investigators say that the culprits, after preparing and saving the message in a floppy disc in the Internet browsing centre opposite the VOC Grounds, Palayamkottai, sent it from another centre at Murugankurichi.

Policemen have been deployed at both the Internet browsing centres and at the office of a telecommunication service provider, through whose network the message was transmitted.

The police are also probing the background of a waiter in an eatery at Palayamkottai.

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