Police wait for Google to help them trace creators of ‘toolkit’

On Friday, the cyber prevention and awareness detection (CyPAD) unit of the city police sent a letter to Google and asked for details of the people who drafted the toolkit, edited and circulated it.

The Delhi Police on Saturday said they were waiting for a response from Google from which they have sought assistance in identifying the author/creator of a “toolkit” or document, which allegedly detailed an action plan for online and offline protests associated with the ongoing farmers’ agitation.

A link to Google's proposal to a workable news code on the company's homepage, arranged on an iPhone in Sydney, Australia, on Friday, Jan. 22, 2021. Google threatened to disable its search engine in Australia if it�s forced to pay local publishers for news, a dramatic escalation of a months-long standoff with the government. Photographer: David Gray/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)

Any concrete progress in the investigation into the toolkit case will happen only when the Google helps the investigating team with the IP addresses and details of the two e-mail accounts, through which the toolkit was created, a senior police officer associated with the probe said.

“We are hoping that Google will share the desired information. As of now, we are collecting details of the social media accounts that posted the toolkit or screenshots of its content,” said the officer.

On Friday, the cyber prevention and awareness detection (CyPAD) unit of the city police sent a letter to Google and asked for details of the people who drafted the toolkit, edited and circulated it. Separately, police are also trying to get details of the Instagram account mentioned on the original toolkit, through which a live session was screened.

Police on Saturday updated the list of arrested persons on their website. The new list has the names of 125 persons, three more than the previous list. The names of three persons, who were arrested by the Burari police station on February 3, also figure in the updated list. Their identification was done on the basis of video footage analysis.

While two persons have been arrested so far in connection with the vandalism and violence at the Red Fort, investigators said that they have been conducting raids to nab eight key suspects, including actor Deep Sidhu and one Jugraj Singh, who were allegedly involved in the violence at the UNESCO World Heritage site. Police have identified Jugraj as the one who had allegedly hoisted a religious flag at the ramparts of the fort.

The other six absconding suspects have been identified as Buta Singh, Iqbal Singh, Gurjant Singh, Gurjot Singh, Jagbir Singh and Sukhdev Singh. Police have already announced R6 lakh rewards – R1 lakh each for Deep, Jugraj, Gurjant and Gurjot while R50,000 each for the other four – for information leading to their arrest.

Another officer who did not want to be named said that Iqbal has been identified as the one who had done a Facebook live from the Red Fort during the violence.

Officials said they have identified over 100 suspects and notices are being sent to them for joining the investigations.