Srinagar, Apr 17: Police have identified a Swiss lady for allegedly hosting anti-government pages on social networking site Facebook, besides questioning several youth in the valley.
To identify and act against the people involved in anti-government activities on the Facebook, police had registered two cases under Information Technology (IT) Act. The first one has been registered in 2010 and the second in 2011 vide FIR numbers 88/2010 and 132/2011 under section 66 IT Act, 13 Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in police station Shergardi.
The investigations have been carried out jointly by cops of police station Shergardi and IT experts. A police official who was part of investigating team said that during the investigations they found a Swiss woman whose name came up in the case. He identified her as Rebecca Mary (47) and said she was operating on Facebook with fake identity Khadija Hassan.
During the investigations the police official said that they found that Rebecca had visited Kashmir thrice. “First she visited valley in 2007, then in 2010 and lastly in Dec 2011,” the police officer said. “She stayed in valley till February 2012 from December 2011 in Nishat area of Srinagar.”
The investigating officer said during the period Rebecca met youth in Kashmir University and traveled to various parts of the valley. “She had made a lot of acquaintances in the valley,” he said.
Police claims that they have summoned four administrators of the major anti-government pages and have identified 24 other persons who will be summoned in coming days.
“We were after them for a long time. A team was constituted to nab them. It was taken as a challenge to identify them. They were uploading provocative and seditious material on these websites and pages besides making pejorative comments. They were concealing their identity by using pseudonyms while running these pages. It was a Herculean task to nab them,” said a police officer.
Police officials who have been investigating and monitoring the activities of these pages said that the administrators of these pages were interlinked to each other.
He said the youth were running pages like “Allaw,” “Hoshar Jammat,” “Ballaiy Khoda” and “We love Syed Ali Shah Geelani” and were using pseudonyms while running these pages.
Quoting the administrator of ‘Hoshar Jammat,’ the police official said, “They used to share password or make many administrators. Once one youth was not getting time to upload contents on ‘We love Syed Ali Shah Geelani’ page, he made his friend administrator of the page. This is how they used to manage these pages.”
On being asked about the origin of the administrators of these pages, the Investigating Officer said, “Many of these administrators are based in Srinagar; however a good number of administrators are running these pages from across the border and European countries.”
Police sources claim that efforts are being made to track them and electronic evidence is being collected to substantiate their claims.
Police officials further claim that majority of these page administrators are in their teens having diverse backgrounds and most of them are from Srinagar city.
Police claims that Kashmiri Diaspora was also behind these pages.
Giving further details about the activities of these administrators, the police officials said, “They were also coordinating the writing of graffiti in Srinagar during the turmoil as a small group of youngsters were earmarked for this assignment.”
“If the youth do not change their behavior, they will be dealt with strictly,” Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir Zone S M Sahai told Greater Kashmir. However he denied comment over the involvement of Swiss woman. “I would not comment, that is a matter of investigation,” IGP Kashmir added.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST