TIRUCHY: Devotees who tried to access the portal of the famous Sri Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam here on Saturday morning were in for a shock as they found the website hacked. Alarmed, the temple management lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime unit of the city police who launched a probe and found that a Pakistan-based extremist group was behind the act.
According to sources, the website www.srirangam.org is designed and maintained by a Mumbai-based company. The website provides complete information about the temple and devotees can book rooms at Yatri Nivas, as well as avail of services like e-hundi, e-thiruppani and e-annadanam. This apart, the website displays the daily schedule, puja timings, darshan timings and mode of offerings.
With Vaikunta Ekadesi festivities beginning a couple of days ago, the temple authorities used to upload pictures of daily events and Namperumal’s ‘alangaram’.
Around 2.50 am on Saturday, devotees who tried to access the website were shocked to see a note that said ‘you just got hacked’ and read ‘Pakistan Zindabad’.
Further, a warning message was also displayed which read ‘Indian Kiddies Don’t Hack PK Sites Otherwise we will Destroy Your Cyber Space’ and was attributed to a group called ‘Pakistan LEETS’, an extremist group. Stunned devotees alerted temple officials who in turn lodged a complaint with the Cyber crime police. The temple authorities also informed the company in Mumbai which was handling the site. Subsequently, the website was restored around 10.50 am.