New Delhi: CBI will seek Pakistan
government`s help in identifying members of a hacker group
"VERGIL" operating from that country and was allegedly
involved in defacing the official website of Bureau of Police
Research and Development in 2010.
Accepting a CBI plea, a Delhi court on Tuesday issued a
`Letter of Request` to the Department of Justice in Pakistan
for obtaining information and documents relating to the case.
The agency had moved an application before Chief
Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav, who said he was satisfied
that a case has been made out for issuing the `Letter of
Request`.
"Considering the facts and the circumstances of the
case in totality, in my opinion, CBI has been able to make out
a good case for issuance of Letter of Request under section
166 (A) CrPC in favour of the Department of Justice in
Pakistan for obtaining the information and documents," the CMM
said.
The CBI registered a case on the basis of a complaint
received from Director General of BPRD that its official
website (www.bprd.gov.in) stopped functioning from March 12,
2010 and the website was defaced by a Pakistani hacker group
`VERGIL`.
CBI`s Special Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Sharma
told the court that the site contained details relating to
police development and research, training, various police
commission reports, police reforms, events and other
information.
He apprised the court that four Internet Protocol (IP)
addresses were used in the commission of the offence and
during investigation it was revealed that these IP addresses
belonged to Lahore, Punjab in Pakistan.
CBI further contended that Pakistan Telecommunication
Company Limited (PTCL) was the concerned Internet Service
Provider (ISP) for the four IP addresses.
"It was clear that the unauthorized access for the
defacement of the BPRD website was done by some persons using
the broadband internet services of PTCL.....This company was
found dealing with multimedia and telecommunications services
in Pakistan," Sharma told the court.
The CBI has sought from Pakistan the user details for
these four IP addresses at some specific time and has also
asked for a probe to know about the associates of the group
`VERGIL`.
The CBI told the court that Ministry of Home Affairs
has also accorded approval to the CBI to send Letter of
Request to Pakistan.
PTI
