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Is technology a toy in the hands of terrorists?

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

BANGALORE, INDIA: The terror strike on Mumbai has once again brought to the fore how technology, especially in the communication front, is being used for anti-social, or to be precise antihuman, activities.

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The fishing trawler, Kuber that the Indian Coast Guard officials had intercepted from Porbandar on Thursday was found with a GPS map of south Mumbai and also a satellite phone. It is believed that the terrorists used this ship, missing since November 13, to reach Mumbai via sea route.

Then again, a satellite phone recovered from two dead terrorists reportedly showed calls made to Karachi before and after the attacks commenced.

And, as is the case of any terror strike, here also the Internet was used to claim responsibility of the attack, though its authenticity is still doubtful. Hours after the Mumbai terror siege began, many media organizations received an e-mail from an unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claiming responsibility for the attack.

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"We want to warn the Indian government that they must stop the injustice against the Muslim community," warned the email. However, security experts feel that there is no such organization called Deccan Mujahideen. According to a television channel the Internet connection used to send the email had been traced to Russia.

The use of email has become very common among the terrorists to spread their poison worldwide. Following the recent serial explosion in Delhi, a young techie called Mansur Peerbhoy, who worked as software engineer with Yahoo India, was nabbed for acting as the ‘internet brain’ of Indian Mujahideen that claimed responsibility for the attack.

The use of technical advancement for disastrous activities has become a headache for the authorities. The situation is such that a terrorist can safely use a satellite phone or even a micro blogging system to implement the ‘mission of terror’.

And the question as of now is: how to handle this situation of hi-tech terror and prevent technological advancements from being tools in the hands of the agents of terrorism.

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