I have been hearing a lot about Cyber Terror but have remained untouched by it so far. God is kind to me and my friends who have just heard of this phrase or read it in the newspapers. Anyway, let us see for ourselves what it entails.
The electronic communication on the Internet belongs to the Cyber ream. As and when one plans to use or misuse the cyber realm for an act or omission causing Terror in a section of people anywhere in the world, it is called Cyber Terror. It can be used for sending Emails, real or fake, to people known or unknown to a single terrorist or a group of terrorists, it is a simple use of cyber facility in furtherance of an act of terror. Sometimes Emails are sent to mislead the police investigation like it was done by some Islamists from Kishtwar,J&K after the bomb blasts on the Delhi High Court premises in Sep 2011. The investigating agencies were lucky to catch these kishtwari operators from their area of operation. Thus the lion was bearded in its own den.
WHO RULES CYBER WORLD
HACKING of websites and Email IDs are other effective ways of perpetrating cyber terror on innocent citizens and preventing them from pursuing their normal activities Thus a group of cyber terrorists succeeds in disrupting normal communication by illegally interrupting it to spread a sense of cyber panic. The aim of a terrorist group is to disrupt normal life of peaceful and innocent citizens thereby undermining the authority of a lawfully established govt. When the government of a country is at the receiving end time and again, people lose faith in it and the terrorists gain the upper hand. If terrorists of the cyber realm succeed in hacking websites, interpolating their ideology in the text of a govt sponsored website and thus dominate the thought process of the citizenry, the weak government becomes weaker and eventually fades into oblivion. The cyber world is left open to perpetrators of cyber terror and they rule the roost.
An effective govt that has a head with a robust personality will never allow cyber terrorists to make inroads into its domain. It is the government that should call the shots in the cyber realm and not the cyber terrorists. The common man is an intelligent entity and understands what is going on around him. Neither the cyber terrorists can fool him nor the govt of the day; least so an ineffective govt headed by a meek man who is remotely controlled by an extra-constitutional authority. The situation obtaining in India that is Bharat amounts to courting national disaster and handing over the reins of the country to cyber terrorists and the Islamist terrorists. The worst sufferer is the common man.
CYBER SEX
The far South of India gave rise to a term Love Jihad. No less an institution than the High Court of Kerala was constrained to draw the attention of the government of the State and other Intelligence agencies that a sinister plot of enticing young nubile girls of the Hindu and Christian communities by Muslim youth harnessed by anti-India forces was taking roots. Young and charming young Muslim males enrolled in the colleges, made friends with poor young girls of the Hindu and Christian communities, lured them with lucre and prospects of cosy life abroad provided they converted to Islam and married the enticer. The simple girls fell for the promised land that was never to materialize. Once they became Muslims they were thrown into crowded harems of unfortunate convertees and languished there unless a social worker or a philanthropist of their original faith rescued them from the virtual hell. When they lodged FIRs against their fake friends of college days, cases were investigated and the Hon’ble High Court of Kerala intervened. Justice Sankaran Nair ordered the govt to launch a thorough investigation and stop the deceit going on in the name of Love Jihad.
The Cyber Communication played a major role in initially enticing young simple and poor girls by sending them emails leading them up the garden path. In many a case the text of Emails was such as would titillate adolescent girls, excite them sexually and motivate them to experiment with sex at no cost. Little did the simpletons realise that they were about to pay for momentary pleasure with ruination of life. Cyber Sex leads juveniles astray because they have no past experience in this field. Parents and family elders fight shy in talking sex to young girls of the family. However, the sexual desire and its manifestation cannot be suppressed for long. The sexual desire erupts psychologically and physically among both boys and girls and they commit major mistakes in choosing sex partner through computer contacts. These contacts made in the cyber world turn out to be worse than the blind dates of the western hemisphere. The cyber sex indulged in quite innocuously becomes uncontrollable and leads to physical sex that has disastrous consequences.
CYBER LAWS
At the beginning, cybernauts who intruded into the privacy of others were hard to detect. A few were clever by half and the local police that was computer illiterate could hardly detect commission of an offence, leave alone prosecuting culprits and having them punished by a court of law. The new generation was quite computer savy and knew how to hoodwink the authorities and get away with an infringement here or an infringement there. Moreover, as usual the executive and the legislature took time to coordinate their acts and bring bills before the Parliament to be enacted into laws to provide protection to the law abiding citizens and bring culprits to book.
The Cyber Terror was the most important angle to be taken care of by the govt. Absence of duly passed Acts of Parliament was indeed a boon to the cyber terrorists. However, their honeymoon was over soon when suitable laws were enacted to deal with the cyber terror appropriately. Of course, some nationalist forces in the play are of the opinion that the laws dealing with the cyber terror should be more stringent so that it is a deterrent to them. The mild mannered citizens feel that a beginning has been made, prosecutions under the cyber laws are being launched and amendments may follow taking into account experiences gained in dealing with cyber terror so far. After all it is an ongoing process in the human society.
The Cyber Terror is here with us. It is not going to be wished away. Our social order and the government of India have to deal with it jointly and unitedly. The problem of cyber terror must be faced squarely and not by playing ping-pong and shifting the responsibility every now and then. The blame game has no place in the realm of Cyber Terror and it has to be fought on a war footing and there is no alternative but to defeat it.
By Chitranjan Sawant
UPVAN 609, Sector 29, Noida-201303, INDIA.
Join LAWyersClubIndia's network for daily News Updates, Judgment Summaries, Articles, Forum Threads, Online Law Courses, and MUCH MORE!!"
Tags :Criminal Law
