NEW DELHI, 20 July 2006 — Indian Internet users, angry at being denied access to popular weblogs, lashed out at the government on yesterday for banning some websites in the wake of last week’s Bombay train bombings.
As per instructions from the government, the telecom department has asked 150 Internet service providers to block 18 websites, including www.dalitstan.org, hinduunity.org, clickatell.com and princesskimberly.blogspot.com, as these are said to spread “extreme views.”
Declining to comment on the issue, Deepak Maheshwari, secretary, Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said: “The instructions have been received from the government and the sites have been blocked accordingly.”
Though the government has resorted to such action earlier, it is the first time that blocking of such a large number of websites has been ordered. Earlier, this measure was exercised normally against one or two at a time.
“India has clearly joined the Internet Filtering Club of China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Ethiopia,” wrote professional blogger Amit Agarwal on his website, Digital Inspiration. “If the access to restricted websites is not restored in a day or two, this issue is sure to gather active momentum in the Western blogosphere.”
Amit Varma on his India Uncut website added: “I hope it’s just a kneejerk reaction by some clueless babu (bureaucrat) that is soon corrected. I hope we don’t go the China way.” The government has not given an official reason for the ban. But the media quoted unnamed officials as saying it was meant to check websites spreading hate messages after the bombings killed more than 180 people on July 11.
A government official said only two websites had been blocked. “I have seen the government order. Only two web blogs — pyjamaeditors.blogspot.com and exposingtheleft.blogspot.com have been blocked,” Gulshan Rai, head of cyber security agency Computer Emergency Response Team, told AFP.
The Hindustan Times newspaper, however, printed a list of 17 websites it said were mentioned in an order two days after the Bombay blasts. Internet users said they could not access hundreds of other weblogs as most Internet service providers did not have the technology to block individual blogs on a hosting site such as blogspot.com.
Not all service providers, however, had implemented the ban, allowing many surfers to visit the blocked websites.
A visit to the blocked websites suggested the ban was random and not necessarily a response to content inciting hatred.
Exposingtheleft.blogspot.com, for inst-ance, has web postings on American politics and developments in the Middle East. Pajamaeditors.blogspot.com, on its front page, has no reference to either the bombings or any development in India.
Officials refused to say on what basis the websites were selected for the gag.
“Ask the department of telecoms,” said Rai, while the Ministry of Telecommunications, under which the department comes, recommended a call to Rai for the official version on the ban. “This block is a mindless exercise and shows our bureaucrats don’t understand technology at all,” cyber-law expert Sarabjit Roy told the Hindustan Times daily.
The blocking of sites had also prevented access to another site, mumbaihelp.blogspot.com, which was set up to help relatives of the victims of the blasts. Hundreds of people had logged on to seek people missing after the bombings and offer help to others.
Some bloggers responded to the blocking by setting up pages on other websites and showing readers ways to circumvent the ban. One such way is to use the gateway pkblogs.com, a site popular among Pakistani users for bypassing government censorship.
Internet use has grown quickly in India after prices fell during the deregulation of the telecom sector in the past five years. There are nearly 38 million Internet users among the 1.1 billion population.
Meanwhile, police arrested 19-year-old Sumit Tamrakar in Bhopal who allegedly sent an e-mail to a Hindi daily posing as chief of the Students Islamic Movement of India in Madhya Pradesh and also claimed responsibility for the Bombay blasts.
The e-mail also mentioned a letter Sumit dropped inside the donation box of a temple, which was later recovered by the police. Whatever happened in Bombay was only a “trailer and more dreadful attacks would be carried out in Bhopal,” the letter said.
Police traced the cyber café from where the e-mail had been sent and later arrested Sumit. His writing matched with that in the letter recovered from the temple, police said.
During preliminary interrogation, the accused claimed to have posted the e-mail only as a prank to create a sensation. “Yes, I did send the e-mail, but it was a prank. I did not realize the consequences of it,” he said.
