Mumbai: The Pune cyber police have squarely blamed Bharti Airtel for the ordeal undergone by K Lakshmana Kailash, the Bangalore HCL employee who was arrested in September 2007 for allegedly defaming Shivaji on a website. Kailash, who spent 50 days in jail, was arrested on the basis of a wrong computer address provided by Bharti.
Replying to Kailash’s legal notice sent in January 2008, Netaji Shinde, assistant commissioner of police, economic & cyber, crime branch, Pune, not only asserted that Bharti Airtel was at fault but said the telecom operator had slipped up and provided a wrong computer address in another case as well. However, Bharti’s advocates Holla & Holla, in an interim reply to the same notice, stated that their clients “deny there has been any negligence or other tortious (sic) acts on their behalf resulting in any actionable claim’’. They added that a detailed reply would follow.
Shinde, in his five-page reply, says that on August 8, 2007, Bharti Airtel, Bangalore, furnished Lakshamana’s address through an email. “As per the information given by Bharti Airtel regarding the physical address of creation of Orkut profile (defaming Shivaji) on IP address 59.144.51.125, Laxman Kailas (sic) K was arrested on September 1, 2007, at 2 pm,’’ says the reply.
The police had first sought the information regarding
the moderator of the Orkut group on August 3, 2007 from internet giant Google. The latter informed them that the group was created by IP address 59.144.51.125 on October 29, 2006, at 01.11.57 pm GMT. The email id used to create this Orkut group was kiranreddy-gv@yahoo.co.in, says Shinde (a valid email address is required to create an Orkut group).
It was only on October 1, 2007, that the Pune cyber police were able to access the Yahoo email inbox and emails sent from kiranreddy-gv@yahoo.co.in. The trail lead to Kirankumar V Reddy who worked with Convergys Company, Bangalore. Reddy allegedly confessed that he was
the one who had created the Orkut community which called Shivaji various names.
“Since there should not be two addresses of creation of Orkut profile of IP address 59.144.51.125, I personally visited Bharti Airtel in Pune and asked them information on the IP,’’ says Shinde. “It was revealed during the investigation that the information on the physical address of this IP furnished by Bharti Airtel, Bangalore, was wrong and the information of the same IP address later furnished by Bharti on October 11, 2007 (41 days after Lakshmana had been jailed) is correct,’’ says Shinde in his reply.
Shinde also says that
Bharti gave a wrong IP address in another case. On investigation of another offence being investigated by Hinjewadi Police Station, Pune), the Pune cyber cell found that Bharti had provided them with an incorrect physical address for IP 122.167.2.155. “Therefore, we once again asked them to give details of the IP address and Bharti Airtel gave the correct address,’’ says Shinde.
Reacting to the fairly serious charges levelled by the Pune cyber police, an Airtel spokesperson said, “As one of the leading telecom operators in the world, we deploy some of the state-of-art technologies, systems and processes that are benchmarked against the best global standards. We are looking into this matter and will take necessary steps. With regards to Lakshmana, we are in touch with him. Beyond this, we are unable to comment as the matter is sub-judice.’’
Lakshmana, on his part, is angry and disturbed, especially at the terse one-page Bharti reply, denying culpability. “Bharti’s reply does not justify how it is not responsible for the charges against it,’’ he says. “It contains no evidence or points to support its denial of charges. The police, on the other hand, have substantiated the denial of charges against them with clear evidence. But their reply holds strong and clear proof that Bharti Airtel is responsible for my damages.’’