Telecommunications have shut down in some parts of the Kashmir Valley after a wave of attacks on the mobile-phone network has left two people dead and three injured. Who is behind the violence is still a mystery, as also what purpose it serves.
The authorities ascribe the attacks to militants, claiming that separatists groups are attempting thwart counterinsurgency measures that depend on tracking mobile telephony. Militants, on the other hand, blame them on the Indian army, saying they’re a bid to tarnish the azadi movement.
If the recent past is any guide, it would seem that a shutdown of cellular companies in the Valley would actually hurt militant groups. Over the years, they’ve come to depend on mobile telephony – not so much for the conventional call or text facilities as for the internet.
Technological protection
In 2012, after a few militants were arrested in Sopore the police discovered that the Pakistan-based militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba had built a smartphone application of its own called ibotel. The app ran on 2G and 3G internet, and could be used to make Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, calls.
Since any data transmitted through VoIP after encryption is difficult to intercept, the app provided a whole new level of technological protection to Lashkar operatives.
An intelligence officer had confirmed this to the Times of India in April 2012. The officer lamented then that agencies could earlier track phone conversations and trace IP addresses of emails, “but now we’re finding it tough to gather intelligence because Lashkar men hold audio or video conferences using private VoIP”.
In April 2013, when the police in Sopore arrested top Lashkar militant Qari Naved alias Fahadullah, his phone provided no leads since he had stopped using it long before. The police eventually traced his accomplices, Shabir and Hilal Molvi, via Facebook. Based on the information provided by Fahadullah, the police claimed that it arrested many others. At the time, the police said that Fahadullah was sending local youths to Pakistan for advanced arms and communication training, including for VoIP.
“We didn’t know about ibotel,” an officer from the police’s Special Operations Group in Sopore had said in an interview. “We found it installed on a cellphone recovered from a local militant. With the help of his phone we traced more boys.”
Unauthorised devices
The militants’ dependence on technology seems to have continued.
According to an early reports on the recent attacks, employees of two telecommunications companies were assaulted after they removed an “unauthorised device”, ostensibly installed by militants, from a cell tower.
The Indo-Asian News Service quoted an intelligence official as saying that the machine was a “high-powered long-range signal transmitting and receiving device” used by militants. “Even if they have such devices, these are not effective unless installed at a suitable height,” the official said. “The height of the towers built by the mobile cell phone companies to transmit mobile phone signals is ideal for long-range communication of any kind.”
That report didn’t question why the same height couldn’t be reached with a tree or a water tank. Nor did it answer how the use of such technology went undetected in the Kashmir Valley, despite the pervasive presence of the armed forces here.
In the meantime, the attacks that began last month in Sopore have spread to other parts of Kashmir. On Monday, for instance, a grenade was thrown at a cellphone tower in downtown Srinagar. Though an unknown group called Lashkar-e-Islam has claimed responsibility for the attacks, the umbrella group of militant organisations, called the United Jihad Council, denied their involvement in these incidents. The spokesperson of the United Jihad Council claimed that Lashkar-e-Islam doesn’t exist and the violence is a ruse used by Indian agencies to mislead the people of Kashmir.
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The authorities ascribe the attacks to militants, claiming that separatists groups are attempting thwart counterinsurgency measures that depend on tracking mobile telephony. Militants, on the other hand, blame them on the Indian army, saying they’re a bid to tarnish the azadi movement.
If the recent past is any guide, it would seem that a shutdown of cellular companies in the Valley would actually hurt militant groups. Over the years, they’ve come to depend on mobile telephony – not so much for the conventional call or text facilities as for the internet.
Technological protection
In 2012, after a few militants were arrested in Sopore the police discovered that the Pakistan-based militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba had built a smartphone application of its own called ibotel. The app ran on 2G and 3G internet, and could be used to make Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, calls.
Since any data transmitted through VoIP after encryption is difficult to intercept, the app provided a whole new level of technological protection to Lashkar operatives.
An intelligence officer had confirmed this to the Times of India in April 2012. The officer lamented then that agencies could earlier track phone conversations and trace IP addresses of emails, “but now we’re finding it tough to gather intelligence because Lashkar men hold audio or video conferences using private VoIP”.
In April 2013, when the police in Sopore arrested top Lashkar militant Qari Naved alias Fahadullah, his phone provided no leads since he had stopped using it long before. The police eventually traced his accomplices, Shabir and Hilal Molvi, via Facebook. Based on the information provided by Fahadullah, the police claimed that it arrested many others. At the time, the police said that Fahadullah was sending local youths to Pakistan for advanced arms and communication training, including for VoIP.
“We didn’t know about ibotel,” an officer from the police’s Special Operations Group in Sopore had said in an interview. “We found it installed on a cellphone recovered from a local militant. With the help of his phone we traced more boys.”
Unauthorised devices
The militants’ dependence on technology seems to have continued.
According to an early reports on the recent attacks, employees of two telecommunications companies were assaulted after they removed an “unauthorised device”, ostensibly installed by militants, from a cell tower.
The Indo-Asian News Service quoted an intelligence official as saying that the machine was a “high-powered long-range signal transmitting and receiving device” used by militants. “Even if they have such devices, these are not effective unless installed at a suitable height,” the official said. “The height of the towers built by the mobile cell phone companies to transmit mobile phone signals is ideal for long-range communication of any kind.”
That report didn’t question why the same height couldn’t be reached with a tree or a water tank. Nor did it answer how the use of such technology went undetected in the Kashmir Valley, despite the pervasive presence of the armed forces here.
In the meantime, the attacks that began last month in Sopore have spread to other parts of Kashmir. On Monday, for instance, a grenade was thrown at a cellphone tower in downtown Srinagar. Though an unknown group called Lashkar-e-Islam has claimed responsibility for the attacks, the umbrella group of militant organisations, called the United Jihad Council, denied their involvement in these incidents. The spokesperson of the United Jihad Council claimed that Lashkar-e-Islam doesn’t exist and the violence is a ruse used by Indian agencies to mislead the people of Kashmir.