(A Kavita Media Presentation. Please email comments here.You can also contact Kavita with your feedback, by dialing 678-720-1260. Selected comments will be broadcast on our webcast.)
How difficult is it for someone to pirate your cyber identity ? Your IP address ? This case makes all of us completely vulnerable, given the complete break down of the judicial system in India, the lack of application of our police force that is anxious just to fix the blame as soon as possible to take the heat off them selves, the frightening lack of respect for the rights of the individual, Add to that, lack of technical expertise of both the Police and the Judicial system. A Bangalore based young software engineer Lakshmana Kailash K spent 50 horrendous days in Yerwada jail for a cyber crime he did not commit....
Some one posted obscene pictures of Shivaji on the net, and his service provider pointed to Kailash’s IP address. He was in jail for 50 days before someone listened and accepted that Bharati Airtel had got the wrong IP address. There are many issues that are disturbing :
a. How serious was the crime anyway - to post disrespectful pictures of Shivaji ( I cannot comment as I have not seen them) - under what law was that crime committed?
b. Why did no one listen to Kailash when he kept repeating that it was not his IP address. Why was Bharati Airtel’s irresponsible statement not questioned or investigated before it was accepted. It was probably just a junior employee looking at some records carelessly.
c. Why did it take 50 days for the police to find out the mistake, and had Kailash not been as influential/forceful as he was - could he have languished in jail for years before any one cared ? He probably would have.
d. Kailash’s experience in Jail - about having to use the same bowl for food and for going to the toilet, being subjected to lathi beatings by the police, there only being 3 toilets for 400 prisoners, being stoned by other prisoners for taking more than a minute in the toilet - it is a damning indictment on Indian jails, especially when you consider that most of the people in Yerwada jail are undertrials ( Am I right there ?)
Kailash is now suing both the police and Bharati Airtel for Rs. 20 crores. I hope he succeeds.
E-mail this article
Can any of us be falsely accused of cyber crime?
Shekhar Kapur, born 1945 in British India (in an area which became part of Pakistan) is a renowned filmmaker from India. His works include the Oscar-nominated Elizabeth (1998), a semi-historical account of the early reign of Elizabeth I of England, "The Four Feathers" and "Bandit Queen". In 2000, he was awarded the Padma Shri by the government of India.
