Chief minister of south Indian state Kerala orders probe into email hacking

Thiruvananthapuram: The Special Branch of the Kerala police has hacked into the personal mail accounts of several prominent leaders in the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the second largest partner in the ruling Congress-led UDF, as well as professionals, journalists and intellectuals belonging to the minority community.

Sources said that the SB-CID, the intelligence wing of the Kerala police, had made a list of 258 people from the community for profiling. The High Tech Crime Inquiry Cell of the state police had been hacking these email accounts since November 2011 as requested by the Intelligence Headquarters Superintendent, K.K. Jayamohan. The intelligence wing had initiated the step following a directive from top officials in the state Home Department.

Police got access to these email accounts with the help of service providers. Under pressure from the police, 23 service providers, including Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Rediffmail and Asianet India, disclosed the details of these accounts to the High Tech Crime Inquiry Cell.

Intelligence inputs

Though the Home Department claims that it resorted to the step to crosscheck the veracity of some email accounts, the sources said the exercise was based on intelligence inputs that some extremist outfits had infiltrated into Muslim organisations in Kerala.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has ordered an inquiry into the incident.