A software professional was on Friday arrested for allegedly trying to mislead the police by claiming that information ‘accessed’ by him, using a specially developed software, indicated another terrorist attack in the city soon.
Vivek Ponnulliyil alias Vicky, a native of Kerala, residing at Yapral in Secunderabad, was assisting a central police agency, reportedly the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Meghalaya police,
It was reportedly on his ‘information’ that the Hyderabad police went on an overdrive, intensifying checking and frisking operations in the city.
Disclosing the details at a press conference on Friday, Hyderabad police commissioner Anurag Sharma said Vicky had approached the Task Force on March 2 stating that he had developed a programme which could track e-mail chats. ‘’Once this software is installed in the computer, any activity on the internet by terror suspects can be tracked,’’ Vicky is said to have claimed.
According to police, Vicky claimed that he developed a software which can track e-mailchats through computer based bot-nets installed on remote computers. The programme can be checked everyday through bot-nets which does screen captures when the browser is opened. The data is captured based on certain key combinations and aspects of the user behaviour and also gave a printed write-up about his programme, the commissioner said.
When Vicky was asked to prove the efficiency and genuineness of the software developed by him, he left the place saying that he needs some more time.
On March 5, he came back and showed e-mail IDs of seven sources and extracts of e-mails. He also produced some e-mail drafts, photographs and IP addresses. The communication he got hinted at another terrorist strike in Hyderabad.
Sources said after Vicky produced the gist of the mails, the entire city police machinery went into an overdrive and started frisking and checkings which are continuing till date.
However, senior police officials doubted his version and a three-member expert team from Delhi was called to Hyderabad to verify this software.
The information provided by Vicky proved to be concocted, and he apparently did so to promote his software. The accused had himself fabricated the documents to mislead the police.
The Cyber Crime police registered a case against Vicky under IT Act and arrested him.