Chandigarh police losing battles with gangsters on another plane: Social media

Gangsters bragging about their criminal exploits, flexing their muscles, twirling their moustaches and brandishing weapons, even updating their status from behind bars... The presence of antisocial elements on social media is a problem law enforcement agencies have been grappling with for quite some time. And there’s no controlling the menace.
After Sunday’s murder of Gurlal Brar, 26, student leader and close aide of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, a group loyal to slain gangster Davinder Bambiha posted a message claiming responsibility for the crime. Bishnoi’s group retaliated, announcing the beginning of a “new war.”

There are many such accounts, where gangsters challenge each other and threaten targets.

Sympathisers working behind the scenes

“Most of the (social media) accounts are just using the names of gangsters and their sympathisers are running them. Initially, it was thought that gangsters were passing on instructions from prison but considering the frequent updates that does not seem possible,” said a senior police official on condition of anonymity.

“Gangsters most active on social media are Lawrence Bishnoi, Sampat Nehra, Bhupi Rana, Deepu Banur; and Lucky – who is believed to be heading Bambiha’s gang. Bambiha too makes an occasional appearance while the Jaipal Singh group hardly uses social media,” he added.

“Bishnoi and Nehra are popular among the youngsters and to keep themselves relevant they use social media. Most of the accounts in their names are being operated from abroad. Youths are hired to update these from time to time,” the official said.

Deactivating accounts no deterrent

Jurisdiction issues make things difficult. “Tracking locations from where the accounts operate and people running them is not easy as multiple people have access to the accounts,” said another official.

The fact that Chandigarh police has managed to get only 105 accounts blocked on various social media platforms has not acted as a deterrent as multiple new accounts have sprung up.

“We have directed the cyber cell to trace the accounts from which threats (In the Brar and Bambiha case) were issued. We are scanning the accounts operational in names of various gangsters and are trying to ascertain if the persons uploading these are involved in any anti-social activity. Accordingly, action will be taken,” said Kuldeep Singh Chahal, senior superintendent of police, Chandigarh.

Tedious process

Chandigarh police have so far identified more than 250 accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter being operated in the name of gangsters and other criminals, which are run by their associates.

It has been a long and tedious process to get the 105 accounts, blogs and pages blocked.

Once such sites are identified the list is shared with the cyber cell of the police department which tracks the IP addresses and content uploaded and then considers the requests to deactivate the accounts.

“It is very time consuming and not all requests are honoured. Only those accounts that violate the norms of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are deactivated. But getting a response from the sites is another area of concern as they keep sitting on the requests for deactivation,” say police officials.