Recent arrests may help NIA crack other bomb blast cases

[email protected] (The Hindu)
December 27, 2012

malegaon

New Delhi, December 27: Three recent arrests by the National Investigation Agency may throw new light on the 2007 Samjhauta Express blasts, the May 2007 Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad and the Malegaon explosion in Maharashtra.

Rajendra Chaudhary alias Samandar, who was arrested last week from Ujjain district of Madhya Pradesh, had planted explosives aboard the Samjhauta Express. The train blast claimed 68 lives on February 18, 2007.

NIA sources said Chaudhary was also suspected to be behind the attack on Delhi University professor S.A.R. Geelani in February 2005 as well as involved in the killing of a witness in Madhya Pradesh in 2008.

Prof. Geelani, who was arrested and chargesheeted by the Delhi Police in the December 13, 2001 Parliament House terror attack case, was acquitted by the Delhi High Court in October 2003.

Investigators see Chaudhary’s hand also in the murderous attack on the former RSS pracharak, Sunil Joshi, who was eliminated in December 2007 allegedly to put the lid on a conspiracy by Hindu extremist groups.

The NIA arrested Tej Ram from Ujjain. He was suspected to have planted a bomb at the Mecca Masjid and carried out the explosion that killed nine people.

The third person, Dhan Singh, arrested from Chitrakoot on the Uttar Pradesh-Madhya Pradesh border, is suspected to have been involved in the second blast at Malegaon in 2008 as well as in the Samjhauta blast.

Chaudhary is believed to have told NIA investigators that he, along with Dhan Singh, Ramji Kalsangra and Amit alias Ashwini Chauhan, had planted bombs in Malegaon in 2006 in which 37 people were killed and more than 300 injured. Dhan Singh is also suspected to have planted the bomb in Malegaon in 2008 that killed seven people.

The Malegaon blasts in 2006, probed by Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad, were blamed on nine Muslim men. The arrested men claimed that they had been framed. Most of them were freed on bail by court last year. Malegaon was chosen for bomb attacks twice as it has a sizable Muslim population.

In 2011, Swami Aseemanand admitted that radical Hindu and right-wing extremists were behind the 2006 blasts. He, however, retracted his confession.

The NIA is on the lookout for Ramji Kalsangra, Amit and Sandeep Dange, who was a close associate of the slain Sunil Joshi.

The investigators believe that the loosely-held module, comprising fringe elements of right-wing extremism, was also behind the blasts in Ajmer’s Dargah Sharif, the Mecca Masjid and the Samjhauta Express that provides a much sought-after rail link to Pakistan.

“Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange are two crucial missing links in these terror cases,” the investigators said. As the cases are more than five years old and were earlier probed by other agencies, including the Central Bureau of Investigation, gathering corroborative evidence to link and nail the arrested to the terror cases may prove an uphill task for the NIA.

“We hope to get some clarity in the ongoing probe in all these cases over the next 2-3 weeks,” NIA sources said on Wednesday.

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Agencies
March 14,2020

New Delhi, Mar 14: The number of novel coronavirus cases in India rose to 83 on Saturday, which includes one death each from Delhi and Karnataka, the Union Health Ministry said.

While a 76-year-old man from Kalaburagi who had recently returned from Saudi Arabia died on Thursday, a 68-year-old woman in Delhi who had tested positive for coronavirus passed away at Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital on Friday night.

The woman, whose son with a travel history abroad had tested positive, died because of co-morbidity (diabetes and hypertension), the Health Ministry said, adding that she had tested positive for COVID-19.

Delhi has reported seven positive cases and Uttar Pradesh 11 so far. Karnataka has six coronavirus patients while Maharashtra has 14 and Ladakh three.

Besides, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab have reported one case each. Telangana has reported two.

Kerala has recorded 19 cases, including three patients who were discharged last month after they recovered from the contagious infection with flu-like symptoms.

The total number of 84 confirmed cases includes 17 foreigners -- 16 Italian tourists and a Canadian, the ministry officials said.

Amid rising coronavirus cases in India, the government has asked people not to panic, saying no community transmission of the virus has been observed and there has only been a few cases of local transmission so far and that is "not a health emergency" in India at present.

With the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring COVID-19 a pandemic, a Health Ministry official said over 4,000 people who had come in contact with the 83 positive cases have been identified through contract tracing and were being tracked while 42,000 people across the country are under community surveillance.

He said all essential facilities like community surveillance, quarantine, isolation wards, adequate personal protective equipment (PPEs), trained manpower, rapid response teams are being strengthened further in all the states and union territories.

The Centre as part of its measures to contain the spread of the disease on Friday announced that people will be allowed to travel through 19 of 37 land border checkposts from Saturday midnight and services of the Indo-Bangladesh cross border passenger trains and buses will continue to remain suspended till April 15.

Only four Indo-Nepal border checkposts will remain operational, and for citizens of Bhutan and Nepal visa-free entry to the country will continue, Home Ministry Additional Secretary Anil Malik had said.

He said the decision on closing the Kartarpur Corridor is under consideration

The government on Wednesday suspended all visas, barring a few categories like diplomatic and employment, in an attempt to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

It has asked Indian nationals to avoid all non-essential travel abroad.

All incoming international passengers returning to India should self-monitor their health and follow the required do's and dont's as detailed by the government.

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Agencies
February 6,2020

Bijnor, Feb 6: Apprehensions over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) are now so strong that a team of economic enumerators were allegedly manhandled in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor district and faced stiff resistance from the people.

A team of the economic census enumerators in Bijnor, on Wednesday, sent a letter to the District Magistrate narrating the difficulties they are facing in some parts "due to misinformation".

District magistrate Ramakant Pandey, when contacted, said that he had asked the department concerned to complete the work on time. "If teams are facing any problems, we will sort it out at once. No hurdle in economic census will be tolerated," he said.

According to District Economic and Statistics Officer, Harendra Malik: "Our teams are facing protests in minority-dominated areas as people are linking it to the NRC. Some team members were manhandled.

"We have now asked village heads and municipality chairmen to help our teams in the survey and convince the people. Our teams are trying to convince them that it is a routine work which is being carried out for years. It has nothing to do with the NRC or CAA."

He further said that they plan to hold a series of meetings with people's representatives, including village heads and chairmen, so that they could put an end to this confusion.

The seventh economic census was flagged off in Bijnor by District Magistrate Ramakant Pandey on January 6. There are around 3,000 enumerators and 569 supervisors engaged in the census being carried out under the supervision of economic and statistics department. It is expected to be completed by March 31.

The economic census is aimed at collecting data about the financial status of people engaged in unorganised sector.

Meanwhile, the areas where the enumerators are facing stiff resistance include Kalhari village in Najibabad block, Amipur Narain village in Mohammadpur Devmal block, Anisa Nangli village in Dwarka block and the Mirzapur Bella village in Jalilpur block.

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Agencies
May 26,2020

In a startling revelation, cybersecurity researchers have claimed that a hacker has posted personal details of nearly 2.9 crore Indian job seekers at one of the hacking forums on the Dark Web for free.

As part of the regular sweep over the Deep Web and Dark Web, researchers from cybersecurity firm Cyble came across an interesting item, where a threat actor posted 2.3GB (zipped) file on one of the hacking forums.

"The leak actually has a lot of personal details of millions of Indians Job seekers from different states," Cyble said in its blog on Friday.

This breach includes sensitive information such as email, phone, home address, qualification and work experience etc from job seekers spanning across states, from New Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru. 

Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for such personal information to conduct various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage.

"It appears to have originated from a resume aggregator service given the sheer volume and detailed information," it added.

Cyble indexed this information at ‘AmIbreached.com; – Cyble's data breach monitoring and notification platform.

Cyble researchers have identified a sensitive data breach on the dark web where an actor has leaked personal details of nearly 29 million Indian job seekers from various states. 

"Cyble's team is still investigating this further and will be updating their article as they bring more facts to the surface,” it said in a statement.

Cyble said it has acquired the leaked data. 

The same cyber security firm earlier exposed that Bengaluru-based edtech firm Unacademy was hacked.

According to Cyble researchers, nearly 22 million Unacademy user accounts were affected and the data was dumped and sold on Dark Web.

'We would like to assure our users that no sensitive information such as financial data or location has been breached," said Hemesh Singh, Co- Founder and CTO, Unacademy, in a statement.

In April, hackers sold personal data of a whopping 267 million Facebook users for just Rs 41,500 (approximately 500 Euros) that includes email addresses, names, Facebook IDs, dates of birth and phone numbers.

No passwords of the 267 million Facebook users were exposed by the hacker, according to Cyble.

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