How India surgically struck out 16,000 jihadi social media accounts

Most accounts had coded messages which urged stone pelters to come out and disrupt enounters in the Valley.

It was a surgical strike on the online accounts run by ISI backed jihadis from Pakistan. The Pakistan based jihadi groups had floated a little over 16,000 social media accounts to propagate against India and also carry out an online war.

The Indian security forces put together their best resources to counter this menace. Social media accounts of jihadi groups had started to increase and the first step was to identify each of them. The process itself took a couple of months.

The next step was to understand the pattern. Most of the accounts had coded messages apart from propaganda material on them. It was noticed that the stone pelting during encounters in Jammu and Kashmir were directly linked to the posts on the social media. It was not exactly a spontaneous reaction to an encounter in the Valley, an Intelligence Bureau official explained.

Before any stone pelting incident there would be a clarion call or a coded message posted on these accounts. In minutes of the posting, a group of youth would land up at the encounter site and begin pelting stones. This would lead to a chain reaction and in the next hour or so a large crowd would gather.

The Indian forces understood that the problem was online. They put their best minds to use and after identifying and understanding the pattern, the clean up process began. Fake ids were used to counter proxy accounts. This online war waged against the jihadi groups brought down several accounts. There were posts to counter the propaganda and many accounts were taken down by the Indian agencies.

An Intelligence Bureau official explained to OneIndia that this is an ongoing process. There are a lot of accounts and as we take them down, some more keep coming up.

However the menace has reduced, although we cannot say that it has stopped completely, the officer also explained. However it has managed to derail them to a large extent. When accounts are taken down by the dozen, it demoralises the enemy who will have to once again begin re-thinking strategy the official also explained.

OneIndia News