MADURAI: The official website of the world famous Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai was hacked allegedly by some Pakistan supporters.
Intelligence sources claimed that the hack alert came from the Bengaluru police, after the arrest of Islamic State (IS) Publicist Mehdi Masroor Biswas.
Though the temple website was hacked by a group called ‘Pak Teen Leet’, believed to be supporters of Pakistan on Saturday midnight, it is said that the temple authorities were not aware of it till Sunday evening. “We lodged a complaint with the City Cyber Crime branch police immediately upon learning about the hacking,” said N Natarajan, Joint Commissioner of Meenakshi Amman Temple.
Though temple authorities blocked the website (www.maduraimeenakshi.org), the URL read as follows ‘Site got stamped by Pak Teen Leet’. The hackers identified themselves as Faisal 1337, Jimmy Haxor, Hackar Baba 9 11 and Taimoor Abid, said police sources.
Though the city police were officially tight-lipped on the issue, Intelligence sources claimed that the issue was revealed to the local police only after the Bengaluru police arrested Biswas. “Based on the alert from Bengaluru police, we checked the Meenakshi Amman temple website and found it hacked,” claimed the sources.
The temple administration have been used the services of leading website hosting company hostgator.com in the US for
the website. “We are paying annually $175 to the company,” said temple sources. A Senthil Ilan Cherian, Inspector of Police (Cyber Crime Wing) said, “We sought the help from the Hostgator company to provide us the IP address,
so that it would help us to locate the hackers at the earliest.”
Meanwhile, the temple authorities restored the website around 8.30 pm on Monday.