Mystery SMSes doing rounds to garner support for Anna

No one seems to know where these messages come from. Nevertheless SMSes from unknown numbers are doing the rounds in an attempt to garner support for Anna Hazare who continued his fast at the Ramlila ground on Friday.

No one seems to know where these messages come from. Nevertheless SMSes from unknown numbers are doing the rounds in an attempt to garner support for Anna Hazare who continued his fast at the Ramlila ground on Friday.

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On the eve of Hazare leaving the Tihar Jail, an SMS from an unknown number read: "Support Anna in his fight against corruption while sitting at home. SMS ANNA to 53536 and express your support".

On sending the text, a confirmation message from a news channel is received.

Similarly other messages are also doing rounds - however the number from which the message comes does not flash, but only names like 'Anna' or 'TD-Corrupt'.

Asked if they have started an SMS campaign to garner support for the Gandhian who is demanding a strong, anti-corruption Jan Lokpal bill, a media coordinator of Team Anna denied it.

"We have not started any SMS campaign. We did start sending out SMSes, giving updates of our meetings and so on through a number called TD-IAC, but that has been discontinued," the media coordinator told IANS.

"These campaigns are done by the people and maybe private companies...," he added.

Akshay Jain, a student, said that he has been responding to such text messages. "I responded to a couple of such text messages which say that each SMS counts...but I am not sure how this entire thing works".

Shruti Sharma, a teacher, is more critical.

"How will my sending an SMS benefit Anna Hazare? These things are bogus and people should be wary of such traps which will most probably benefit some private company which is out to ride on Anna's popularity and reap some benefits," Sharma said.