Techie held in Mumbai for sending bulk messages to MMRCL director

Messages were sent to lakhs of people to give a missed call to the MMRCL chief if they wanted to save Aarey Colony’s green cover

The Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) police on Thursday arrested a 35-year-old man for allegedly forwarding bulk messages asking people to give a missed call to the director of Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL), if they wanted to save Aarey Colony’s green cover.

Sources said that the accused Avijit Michael told the police that he wanted to save the environment. (HT FILE)

“A message was sent in the month of January to around 2.5 to 3 lakh people on their mobile phones, which stated that if they wanted to save Aarey Colony and stop the construction of Metro car shed then they should give a missed call on the given number. The number was of Ashwini Bhide, director, MMRCL,” said an officer from BKC police station.

Police said a first information report (FIR) was registered on January 18 under section 186 of the Indian Penal Code and 43(F) and 66 of the Information and Technology (IT) Act.

Police said that the message was sent by a website Jhatkaa.org through a sub-service provider, Exotel Techcom private limited. “The website contacted them through email and eventually the message was sent in bulk. When we tried to check the number from which the message was sent, we reached the sub-service provider. Eventually we also tried to find the Internet Protocol address of Jhatkaa.org but as its domain was made in USA, we could not track it,” the officer added.

Police sent a mail to Jhatkaa.org, and received a reply to the notice. Avijit Michael, trustee of the website, came to Mumbai. Sources said that when he spoke to the police, Michael said he wanted to save the environment.

“He did not believe he had committed a crime. We told him that what he did, came under the denial of service (DOS) attack. Bhide received the calls from January 12 to a few days after the FIR was registered. When her phone got switched off due to the calls, the calls were transferred to her landline. The calls were stopped when we tracked the sub-service provider,” said the officer.

Police arrested Michael but he secured bail as it was a bailable offence.