Bisada case: Cops clueless about Twitter handlers even after weeklong probe

Even a week after lodging an FIR, the Noida police have failed to arrest the handlers of the Twitter accounts who allegedly posted objectionable material related to the lynching of a man in Bisada village following rumours that he had slaughtered a cow.

Even a week after lodging an FIR, the Noida police have failed to arrest the handlers of the Twitter accounts who allegedly posted objectionable material related to the lynching of a man in Bisada village following rumours that he had slaughtered a cow.

Policemen barricade one of the entry points to Bisada village. (HT File Photo)

Police have said the handlers have been using ‘onion routers’ to disguise their identity.

The FIR was lodged at the Sector 20 police station on October 4 against the Twitter handlers for posting communally sensitive photographs and statements on the microblogging website related to the lynching. However, no progress has been made in the case so far. The four Twitter account handlers identified by the Noida police continue to post objectionable material.

One of the accused has even challenged the Noida police to arrest him. During last week, the accused have posted several inflammatory statements on the Bisada incident, Ayodhya dispute and Mainpuri riots, among others. Their followers have risen to 22,100 from 21,500 in a week.

One of the tweets said since Section 66(A) of the Information Technology Act has been abolished, he has every right to express his views on the social media.

“I have been on Twitter for three years, one month and 28 days (since August 13, 2012),” the accused tweeted.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Kiran Sivakumar said the cyber cell is working to track the twitter handlers.

“We are hopeful that the case will be cracked soon. The cyber experts of our department had tried to trace the IP addresses of the accused but they failed because the addresses change automatically every few hours. The investigation has zeroed in on an engineering student. He was found operating from several locations in UP including Noida, Kanpur and Varanasi,” the SSP said.

“We are taking help of ethical hackers and cyber experts from the Delhi Police. The Twitter handle is being operated through onion routing that helps the handler use multiple IP addresses,” the SSP said.