Hours after an armed man took hostages inside a local nightclub named Petticoat in the eastern town of Ede in The Netherlands, media reports suggest that the hostage crisis has ended. The crisis ended peacefully after the suspect was arrested by the police.
According to the Jerusalem Post, two men, one of them wearing a balaclava mask, exited a nightclub in the eastern Dutch town of Ede where several people had been taken hostage. News agency ANP reported that one was put in handcuffs by police.
“The last hostage has just been released. One person has been arrested,” a police statement said, adding, “We cannot share more information at this time.”
(Image Source – Sky News)
According to local media, four people were taken hostage after an armed man entered Café Petticoat, in Ede, early on Saturday morning (30th March 2024). The accused had threatened to blow himself up, claiming that he was carrying a bag full of explosives. Reports noted that the accused had weapons and explosives. Police said that the suspect is previously known to them, and he had threatened the hostages with knives.
The motive of the crime is not known yet, but police have ruled out terrorism angle.
While the armed police quickly evacuated the area, they said there was “no indication of a terrorist motive”. However, as a precautionary measure, residents in about 150 homes around the area were evacuated and the town centre was closed down. Additionally, trains to and from Ede were cancelled, railway operator NS said on its website.
A reporter for broadcaster NOS said that a remote-controlled robot was also at the scene apart from the anti-explosive units and police in protective gear.
⚡️ Hostage-taking in the Netherlands
In the town of Ede, an unidentified man has taken five hostages in a cafe and has been holding them for five hours.
The masked man claims to have a bag full of bombs. Police have deployed bomb squads, and residents of nearby houses have… pic.twitter.com/V1XsZtyrhv
Before the accused was apprehended, the owner of the cafe told de Telegraaf newspaper that all the hostages were employees. As the development unfolded, three employees were seen by reporters fleeing the area with their hands above their heads.
Tauseef Ali Farooqui, the IIT Guwahati student who was detained by the Assam Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) for uploading a post to pledge allegiance to ISIS, is currently in ATS custody. Based on the investigation and Farooqui’s questioning, a Police officer said that it appears that he had been interested in studying and engaging with “Islamist” ideas for several years, even before he had joined IIT.
The officer added that the engagement intensified in the last three or four months, with most of it taking place online “through the dark web”.
Additionally, the police also seized a ‘black flag’ from his hostel room, along with a manuscript. Additional Superintendent of Police Kalyan Kumar Pathak had earlier said that “prima facie, it appears to be similar to the ISIS flag”. He, however, added that the specialised agencies would confirm what organisation the black flag belongs to.
Police referred to Tauseef as “very intelligent” noting that they are not aware why he announced his pledge to ISIS in such an apparent manner that it led Police to nab him. A Police officer said, “We still don’t know what his motive was to announce his desire to join the organisation in a manner that would lead us directly to him.”
ASP Pathak referred to Farooqui as a “loner” who kept to himself, and “left his room only for classes and had a very limited friend circle”.
On Friday (29th March), Tauseef’s parents reported to the STF police station in Guwahati to meet him. According to reports, his parents are separated. His mother runs a boutique in South Delhi’s Batla House, while his father stays in Patna. Apart from Tauseef, his elder brother is also a graduate of IIT-Kanpur and runs a start-up.
A fourth-year student who resides in the same hostel in which the accused resided, noted that students in the third and fourth year of B.Tech are given their individual hostel rooms, so Farooqui had not had a roommate for the last two years.
Further, a member of the institute’s administration said that he was an above-average student who would have graduated in a month, adding that the developments have surprised the faculty.
Earlier on 23rd March, Assam Police detained Tauseef Ali Farooqui for pledging allegiance to the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) via an open letter on the social media platform LinkedIn. Farooqui is a final-year biotechnology student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.
In the email, which police said he had marked to some colleges and IGP Partha Sarathi Mahanta, he wrote that he would make hijrat – which refers to migrating from one’s own land – towards the “region known as Islamic State-Khorasan Province” to pledge his allegiance, beginning the journey on foot from Guwahati, The Indian Express reported.
(Image Source – LinkedIn)
In the open letter on LinkedIn, Farooqui claimed that he had disassociated himself from the “Indian-Construct that includes the so-called Indian Constitution, its institutions and so on”. It added that he “disassociates” from “infidels, all of them, from every land”.
Later, Farooqui was caught by locals and Hindu Jagaran Manch workers in Damdama in Hajo, near Guwahati. He was seen carrying a black flag and chanting Islamic slogans, and when people confronted him, he said that he supported ISIS. He was then handed over to the police by the locals. A case has been registered with the STF and it includes sections of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act UAPA. Since Sunday, he has been in police custody for 10 days.
In a judgement passed on March 22, 2024, pertaining to a dowry harassment case, the Patna High Court observed that a husband calling his wife ‘Bhoot’ (ghost) or ‘Pisach’ (vampire) does not tantamount to cruelty.
The observations were made by Justice Bibek Chaudhuri’s single-judge panel, which was considering a petition submitted by Sahdeo Gupta and his son Naresh Kumar Gupta, both residents of Bokaro, Jharkhand.
Following a complaint from Naresh Gupta’s divorced wife in her hometown of Nawada, the father-son duo had challenged an order issued by a court in the Nalanda district of Bihar.
Back in 1994, Naresh Gupta’s father-in-law filed a complaint against him and his father, claiming that they demanded a Maruti car as a dowry from his daughter. The complaint went on to say that because his daughter couldn’t furnish the demand, she was beaten.
All of these instances, the complaint claimed, had been communicated to him via a series of letters.
Following their petition, the case was eventually moved from Nawada to Nalanda. The father-son duo was sentenced to one year of rigorous imprisonment under section 498A IPC and six months of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000 under Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act by the Chief Judicial Magistrate in 2008.
Their appeal to the Additional Sessions Court was turned down ten years later, after which the aggrieved petitioners moved to the High Court.
Meanwhile, in between all of this, the Jharkhand High Court granted the couple a divorce.
In the HC, the father-son duo contended that the trial court failed to identify particular allegations against them and that their conviction was based on an omnibus allegation.
They went on to say that the complainant’s daughter never received medical attention, despite claims of torture.
In opposition to the petition that was submitted to the Patna High Court by the father-son duo, the lawyer representing the woman contended that the petitioners used to call the woman “bhoot” and “pishach.”
The lawyer further argued that calling a lady “bhoot” and “pishach” by her in-laws in the twenty-first century was “a form of immense cruelty.”
The Patna HC, however, observed that it was “not in a position to accept such an argument”.
“The learned Advocate for the Opposite Party No. 2 seriously urged that abusing a person saying “Bhoot” and “Pisach” itself is an act of cruelty. This Court is not in a position to accept such argument. In matrimonial relation, especially in failed matrimonial relations there are incidents where both the husband and wife abused each other saying filthy language. However, all such accusations do not come within the veil of “cruelty,” the Court said.
Further, the Court stated that the petitioners and the complainant’s daughter had a long-standing disagreement, and the complainants did not submit any documentation to support their demand for a dowry or the ensuing abuse. Consequently, it was determined that the case resulted from personal animosity and disagreements between the parties.
“It is imperative to differentiate genuine cases of dowry harassment from those filed with ulterior motives, as observed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in previous judgments,” Justice Chaudhuri added.
The Patna HC, therefore, allowed the revision petition, quashing and setting aside the order of conviction and sentence passed by the trial court under Section 498A of IPC (cruelty by husband or relatives of husband towards a married woman).
The Delhi Police Special Cell filed a chargesheet on 30th March in the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) case against Prabir Purkayastha, the founder and editor of NewsClick, who was apprehended by the authorities on 3rd October last year along with Human Resources (HR) chief Amit Chakraborty for receiving illicit funding from China that was transferred via the United States. The chargesheet included NewsClick, the news portal, as an additional accused party.
The police team brought two trunks filled with over 8000 pages of the chargesheet to the court. The chargesheet names editors, co-founders, and staff members of the news platform, authorities said. Neville Roy Singham, a billionaire from the United States, has also been identified as the “accused.”
The chargesheet was filed before the Additional Sessions Judge Dr Hardeep Kaur, in Patiala House Court in Delhi. Submitting the chargesheet, Special Public Prosecutors Advocate Akhand Pratap Singh and Suraj Rathi told the court that the chargesheet names Prabir Purkayastha, founder and editor-in-chief of NewsClick, and PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt Ltd as an accused.
The prosecutors also requested the court to defer taking cognizance because sanctions under section 45 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and section 196 (for prosecution for offence against state and for criminal conspiracy to commit such offence) of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) are awaited. They said that charges under these sections will be filed in the form of a supplementary chargesheet very soon.
HEaring the pleas, the court fixed April 16, 2024, for arguments on the cognizance point.
The Delhi Police were given an extension by the Patiala House Court in Delhi to file the chargesheet by December of last year. Police were given a two-month extension in February of this year, followed by a 20-day extension.
Special Cell of Delhi Police has filed its first chargesheet in a news portal Newsclick case which is registered under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, following allegations that news portal received huge money for pro-China propaganda.
Under provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the UAPA, the Special Cell filed a formal complaint in this respect in August. The two were placed under judicial custody for a month in November. Purkayastha’s “friendship since 1991” with alleged rights activist Gautam Navlakha, who is being held under house arrest in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case, was also highlighted in the First Information Report (FIR). The police mentioned that he has been a shareholder in NewsClick since 2018.
The Special Cell’s FIR against Prabir Purkayastha included a detailed list of assertions, including attempts to portray Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir as “not parts of India,” attacks on the Indian government’s efforts to combat Covid, financial support for the farmers’ agitation, and “putting up a spirited defence of legal cases” against Chinese telecom companies like Vivo and Xiaomi.
Funds to disseminate propaganda favouring China are reportedly received by NewsClick. The UAPA and the anti-terror law have been invoked against the news company. NewsClick is charged with obtaining more than Rs 80 crore from Chinese companies.
According to the FIR, the news outlet accepted funding from Chinese organizations with the intention of “disrupting the sovereignty of India” and inciting animosity toward the nation. Earlier, a Delhi court gave police a further 10 days to finish their probe into NewsClick founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha. Amit Chakravarty, the chief of NewsClick’s HR department and former accuser turned approver, has had his judicial custody extended for an additional ten days.
According to police, raids were carried out in October 2023 at 88 sites in Delhi and seven other states against the suspects listed in the FIR and those whose names came up during data analysis. In addition, Purkayastha is accused of working with the People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) to undermine the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Purkayastha and Chakraborty were arrested into custody after a full day of searches at more than fifty locations associated with the news portal, its staff and its contributors. The police reported that 46 “suspects” had had their “digital devices” confiscated and were being questioned following the searches, which took place around Mumbai and the National Capital Region. The Delhi office of the news outlet was also sealed by the police.
“Foreign funds in crores have been infused illegally in India by Indian and foreign entities inimical to India in pursuance of conspiracy with the intention to disrupt sovereignty and territorial integrity of India, to cause disaffection against India and to threaten the unity, integrity, security of India,” the Special Cell established in its remand application, citing “secret inputs.”
Arunachal Pradesh was depicted as a disputed area on a new map of India, and the accused were “in direct touch with each other” and “discussing how to create a new map of India without Kashmir,” according to the remand application. They had also received “more than Rs 115 crore” in the “guise of foreign funds” for this purpose. Chakraborty has become an approver in the case, after Purkayastha and he have both been in judicial confinement since November.
The People’s Dispatch Portal, owned and maintained by M/S PPK Newsclick Studio Private Limited has been used for purposefully peddling false narratives through paid news in lieu of crores of rupees of illegally routed foreign funds as part of a conspiracy, based on Delhi Police’s Special Cell’s FIR against NewsClick’s founder and Editor-in-Chief, Prabir Purkayastha.
As the summer season begins and temperatures rise, Ram Lalla, the revered deity of the Ayodhya Temple, has switched to more comfortable cotton attire starting from Saturday.
The Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra announced on X, “The vastra that Prabhu is wearing today, is made of handloom cotton malmal, dyed with natural indigo, and adorned with gotta flowers.”
Considering the arrival of the summer season and the rising temperatures, starting today, Bhagwan Shri Ramlala will be wearing cotton vastra.
The vastra that Prabhu is wearing today, is made of handloom cotton malmal, dyed with natural indigo, and adorned with gotta flowers.… pic.twitter.com/BtDyzQXYgp
— Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra (@ShriRamTeerth) March 30, 2024
This change to lightweight and breathable fabric shows thoughtful consideration for the deity’s comfort during the hot months ahead. Ram Lalla, a cherished 51-inch idol depicting the youthful form of Lord Rama, lovingly known as “Balak Ram,” was sculpted from a rare three billion-year-old black stone by the skilled artisan Arun Yogiraj from Mysuru.
The Pran Pratishtha ceremony for this divine idol took place on January 22, 2024. Meanwhile, in preparation for the upcoming Ram Navami festivities, the Hanumangarhi temple administration convened a meeting on Friday to discuss arrangements for devotees, temple officials reported.
The district administration of Ayodhya and the police were also in attendance at this meeting. Officials discussed provisions for drinking water, placing special emphasis on providing toilets to prevent devotees’ discomfort from the summer heat.
This meeting was prompted by incidents where a few devotees had fainted due to heat and lack of water. Senior saints of Hanumangarh, the National President of Sankat Mochan Sena Sanjay Das, Ayodhya Mayor Girishpati Tripathi, the Circle Officer of Ayodhya, senior police officers, and officials from the Municipal Corporation all participated in this meeting.
Both the police administration and Ayodhya Mayor have assured that visitors will not encounter any issues and that all necessary arrangements will be made for the convenience of devotees during Ram Navami.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of devotees continue to flock to Ayodhya following the Pran Pratishtha ceremony of Lord Ram Lalla. Many visit the Hanumangarhi Ram Temple daily, with their numbers steadily increasing.
The farmers of Punjab have opened a protest front against the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party government. Farmers protested in Amritsar on Saturday (30 March) against the state government’s decision regarding the market committee and burnt the effigy of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.
During the demonstration, the protesters called him ‘anti-farmer’ and raised slogans against him. Farmers protesting near the Golden Gate in Amritsar said that they would fight against the dictatorship of Bhagwant Mann.
They said that the AAP government in Punjab has decided to dissolve 26 market committees, which is against the interests of farmers and labourers. They accused Bhagwant Mann of backstabbing farmers.
Amritsar: Farmer-labor organizations stages a protest against the govt's decision to dissolve 26 market committees led by Bhagwant Mann's govt. pic.twitter.com/cMEHlus7pd
One of the farmers said, “Farmers and labourers are burning the effigy of the Bhagwant Mann government. Bhagwant Mann’s government has backstabbed the farmers of Punjab. And has caused damage to us. The government dissolved 26 market committees in Punjab. They have handed over all the work to 9 corporates. In protest, we are burning the effigy of Bhagwant Mann.”
He added, “To save his government, Bhagwant Mann strangled Punjabis. I call upon the traders that if they want to stay in the market, then speak against the government. I will ask the market committee officials to come ahead against them. In due course, we will decide what decision to take against the Bhagwant Mann government.”
In another video, this farmer said, “We will also decide whether to allow the Aam Aadmi Party to enter the village or not if this notification is not cancelled. Along with this, we would like to tell the Bhagwant Mann government that if you do not withdraw this decision, then you will also have to face us.”
The farmer from Punjab said that the Aam Aadmi Party government has turned agro-markets into corporate yards. He said that the decision to buy, sell and store wheat for the year 2023-24 has been given to the corporate companies. He warned that the protest would now reach a climax in Punjab.
Notably, the Punjab state government has amended the Market Committees Act and dissolved the market committees to merge with various other departments. This has provoked the farmers of Punjab who are now accusing the Bhagwant Mann government of dictatorship and working against the farmers and labourers.
Former Chief Minister of Karnataka Basavaraj Bommai on Saturday claimed that the Congress party has given tickets to the family members of the ministers due to the lack of suitable candidates.
“The ruling party will split after the parliamentary polls,” Bommai said.
He told reporters that the Congress party would split within three months after Narendra Modi would take oath as the prime minister for the third time. It would have an impact on Karnataka also.
“The Dynasty politics has been there in the Congress party and it wasn’t new. But this time giving more tickets to the kith and kin of the ministers was for a different reason. The High command had asked ten ministers to contest in the parliamentary polls but they were not confident to win the election. When the national leaders asked them to suggest suitable candidates, they got the tickets to their sons, daughters, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and brother. This would not benefit the party at all as the voters have decided to vote for PM Modi,” he added.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader in Karnataka Basavaraj Bommai is contesting from the Gadag-Haveri Lok Sabha constituency in the Lok Sabha elections.
Further, the former CM said he would decide tomorrow when to file the nomination as Lok Sabha candidate.
Karnataka, which has 28 Lok Sabha seats, will vote in two phases on April 26 and May 7.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress and JD-S fought together against the BJP and the combine was decimated.
The BJP had won a record 25 seats; Congress and JD-S won just one seat each. The Lok Sabha Elections 2024 will be held in seven phases, starting on April 19. The counting of votes is on June 4.
(This news report is published from a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has not been written or edited by OpIndia staff)
On Friday (29th March), ‘journalist’ turned Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose courted controversy for downplaying the plight of women in Sandeshkhali village of West Bengal.
During an interview with leftist propaganda outlet The News Minute, she was asked to speak about the unrest in Sandeshkhali. The interviewer Sudipto Mondal also tried his best to present the accusations of sexual violence against women as a routine political affair in Bengal.
“I mean you (Sagarika Ghose) have barely been nominated and you are in the middle of a storm because of Sandeshkhali. I will give you a second or two to talk about Sandeshkhali and how it is symptomatic of politics in Bengal and whoever comes over there does this kind of politics…It has become a nature of politics over there… How does your liberal self not get a little (rattled)?” Mondal was heard saying.
At the very onset, Sagarika Ghose attempted to trivialise the role of Trinamool Congress goons namely Sheikh Shahjahan and his accomplices Shibu Prasad Hazra and Uttam Sardar in the Sandeshkhali unrest.
“I think in every political party and every democratic political party, there may be individuals within the party system who are not part of a certain way of thinking. There are those individuals who perhaps commit mistakes,” she was heard saying.
“There are lumpen elements in every party. At the end of the day, we have to look at how a political party responds,” the Trinamool Congress MP said while conveniently forgetting how her party supremo dubbed the protests by women as a ‘minor incident.’
Sagarika Ghose justifies arrest of Republic TV journalist
On hearing that, Sudipto Mondal said, “How did the political party respond? You said that the guy has been arrested. You know that the law is taking its course but both of us can agree that there was a delay and prohibitory orders were imposed there (in Sandeshkhali).”
“As a result, journalists could not land up on the spot. Section 144 applied to anybody who wanted to go and find out what’s happening over there,” he added.
At that point, Sagarika Ghose went on a tirade against Republic TV and said that ‘propagandists’ are bound to face consequences. “No? Apply to who? Umm Republic TV. They are not journalists. They are propagandists. They spread hate. And they are not fair or accurate,” she brazened out.
“When a propagandist goes to a particular place and demands the freedoms of the journalist to practice hate and propaganda, he or she will invite consequences,” the self-declared crusader of free speech remarked. She then claimed that Republic TV was seeking to incite or inflame because they supposedly ‘profit from hate’.
It must be mentioned that the Sandeskhali police arrested a Republic TV journalist named Santu Pan on the directives of the Mamata Banerjee government. He had to spend 3 days in jail before being granted bail by the Calcutta High Court.
Sagarika Ghose passes off Sandeshkhali unrest as ‘local land dispute’
On 7th March this year, Sagarika Ghose tweeted, “Exhilarating experience on the women’s march today led by India’s only woman chief minister @MamataOfficial ahead of #InternationalWomensDay. A pleasure to meet @abhishekaitc on the march.”
“Meeting the women of Sandeshkhali was an eye-opener. They said local land disputes were being politicised by outsiders ahead of elections and Sandeshkhali’s own votes remained firmly with Trinamool Congress,” she brazened out.
Sagarika Ghose wasted no time in downplaying the unrest in Sandeshkhali village, which took place after scores of women took to the streets demanding justice for the atrocities committed against them by TMC goons.
She brushed off the raging controversy as a ‘local land dispute.’ OpIndia had reported the testimonies of several women of Sandeshkhali. They courageously narrated the sexual exploitation suffered by them at the hands of TMC leaders such as Sheikh Shahjahan and his aides Uttam Sardar and Shiba Prasad Hazra.
While illegal land grabbing by the Trinamool Congress was one of the concerns of the villagers, it wasn’t the crux of the issue. The former ‘journalist’ shrewdly dismissed key concerns of women’s safety and threats of gang rape received by the victims from her party leaders.
Interestingly, Sagarika Ghose mentioned that the villagers would continue to vote for the TMC. She however forgot to inform that the likes of Sheikh Shahjahan did not spare the women who voted for the party.
Besides denying the harrowing experiences of the women in Sandeshkhali as a ‘local land dispute’, Sagarika Ghose accused the ‘outsiders’ of politicising the issue. The use of the word ‘outsider’ to refer to the Opposition BJP in West Bengal is a well-thought-out move.
Since 2019, the TMC supremo Mamta Banerjee herself has blamed ‘outsiders’ for incidents of violence and unrest that took place in the State. The objective behind it was to evade responsibility for failing to provide safety and security to the residents of West Bengal.
It also served another purpose of creating a magnified sense of fear among the Bengali community that migrants from other states were somehow usurping their culture, language and safety.
The regionalism and eventual polarisation have yielded great results for the TMC in the 2021 West Bengal elections. Now, Sagarika Ghose is following in the footsteps of Mamata Banerjee.
Three Independent MLAs sat on a day-long protest outside the assembly premises in Shimla on Saturday, demanding that the Speaker accept their resignations.
MLAs Hoshiyar Singh from Dehra, Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur and KL Thakur from Nalagarah submitted their resignations to the Speaker on March 22.
All three MLAs were seen holding placards outside the library of the assembly. The placards read, “We have given our resignation from the membership of the Assembly voluntarily, without any pressure, in person to the Speaker of the Assembly. Please accept our resignation as soon as possible.”
Hamirpur MLA Sharma said that they are now planning to move court.
“Today all three of us are sitting in protest. Unfortunately, democracy is being crushed here. The entire Himachal and country are watching it. We submitted our resignation on March 22 and it has not been accepted so far. We had given our resignation to the Speaker by email as well and we want them to accept it as soon as possible. We shall approach the court; if our resignations are not accepted, we shall move the court. Constitutionally, they have to accept the resignation immediately. The speaker is playing the role of the Congress party; he wants to delay the elections; that is the only reason we are protesting,” Sharma said.
Nalagarh MLA Thakur said that they’ll either go to the High Court or the Supreme Court.
“It is very unusual and unfortunate that we have to protest to accept our resignation in a democratic setting. They were alleging that we are under pressure, and we want to show them through this that we don’t have any pressure. We want the speaker to immediately accept our case. The speaker is not here; if he does not accept it, we shall approach the court. We shall consult it with the senior advocates and will decide whether to approach the Supreme Court or the High Court,” Thakur said.
Dehra MLA Singh said that they have decided to contest elections on the ticket of the BJP.
“This is the first time we are protesting to accept our resignation. I don’t know why they are delaying; I don’t know what the fear is. We have given our resignation willingly and we have done it after humiliation. This is the death of democracy; they are not accepting our resignation,” Singh said.
“They have been alleging horse trading, all of us are well to do; they have humiliated the MLAs; and the work of legislators has been stopped in all sectors. They don’t have any right to accept our resignation, we have decided to contest elections on the ticket of the BJP. If the party doesn’t give us a ticket, we shall serve the people as workers,” he added.
This news report is published from a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has not been written or edited by OpIndia staff)
The Department of Telecom has asked telecom operators to deactivate USSD-based call forwarding with effect from April 15, and provide the service using alternative methods. USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) service allows users to activate various services by just dialling an active code on their phones. For example, the service is often used for checking IMEI numbers and prepaid phone balances. However, after 15 April, USSD can’t be used to activate call forwarding.
As per the govt, this order has been issued to check frauds and online crimes that are operated through mobile phones. In an order issued on March 28, the DoT said that it has come to its notice that USSD based call forwarding facility, the *401# services for unconditional call forwarding services, is being misused for some unwarranted activities.
“In this regard, it has been decided by the competent authority that all licensees shall discontinue the existing USSD-based call forwarding services with effect from April 15, 2024, till further notice,” the notification said.
The users who have activated call forwarding using USSD will have to re-activate the service using alternate methods after 15 April. The order stated, “All existing subscribers who have activated USSD-based call forwarding service may be asked to reactivate call forwarding services through alternative methods to ensure that such services are not activated without their notice.”
Recently, a rise in cybercrimes using USSD-based call forwarding has been noticed, prompting the govt to stop the service. The criminals call people pretending to be customer service representatives or technical support staff from their telecom service provider. They claim that there is a problem with the SIM of the user or other similar issues related to the telecom network, and ask the telecom subscriber to dial the code *401# followed by a mobile number to ‘resolve the issue’.
By doing so, the victim unknowingly activates unconditional call forwarding on the phone number. This means all incoming calls are forwarded to the number of the fraudster. This can be used to intercept various sensitive information, like voice call based OTP.
Earlier in January this year, the Department of Telecommunications advised users to beware of receiving malicious incoming calls asking them to dial *401# followed by an unknown mobile number.
The union govt in recent times has issued several such advisories cautioning people about cybercrime. On 29 March, the Ministry of Communications issued an advisory against calls impersonating DoT, where the fraudsters threaten people to disconnect their mobile numbers. The DoT also issued an advisory about WhatsApp calls from foreign-origin mobile numbers (like +92-xxxxxxxxxx) impersonating government officials and duping the people.
Cybercriminals through such calls try to threaten/steal personal information to carry out cyber-crime/financial frauds. The DoT has advised citizens to report such fraud communications at the ‘Chakshu-Report Suspected Fraud Communications’ facility of the Sanchar Saathi portal. Such proactive reporting helps DoT in the prevention of misuse of telecom resources for cybercrime, financial frauds, etc.
The DoT has also advised citizens to report at the cybercrime helpline number 1930 or the cybercrime website in case of already a victim of cyber-crime or financial fraud.
