AHMEDABAD: Misdirection was the name of the game that the perpetrator who sent threatening emails to Anand Niketan school was playing. He sent one email after another asking the school to put off exams and online classes, driving the school and the cops to investigate that angle.
However, he revealed his hand when he posted morphed photographs of two female students online. The move made the cops realize his real motive was to defame the two girls, and this helped them to whittle down their list of suspects to just one: a 17-year-old student of Class 12.
After months of futile efforts to trace the culprit who first sent an email in September threatening to post morphed pictures of students online if the school did not defer mid-term and preliminary exams, the police reached an impasse. The perpetrator had used the dark web to commit the crime and the case had turned into one of the most complicated cybercrime case that the Ahmedabad police had faced till date. This, even though they had roped in central and US investigative agencies. A senior officer said, “In the first
6 couple of emails, the anonymous sender asked the school to cancel the exams. His real idea was to defame the girls but he played this game to make sure that the the probe was focused on another track.” his Revealing why he targeted these girls, with the officer said, “We got our list of suspects when we checked the phones of 120 students and found that some had looked up information about the dark web. When the photographs of only two Class 12 female students were made viral, we got suspicious. We found that one of the victims had been in touch with one of the guys on our list. He was not only good at navigating the dark web but had also elicited an interest in one of the girls. We found that the girl had rejected him and he believed that her friend was responsible for her decision. So, he decided to take his revenge on the two in this manner.”
Web searches gave cops clue needed to crack case
While this had been a tough case to crack, no crime is perfect. The cops, who got help from central agencies, finally found a lead in the web searches on one of the gadgets they had collected from the students. Last year, before using the dark web to send the threatening emails, the teenager used regular web services to gather information about the dark web. This drew the attention of the cops. Also, the cops wondered why the perpetrator targeted only two girls and began probing in that direction. “We found that the boy had professed his love for one of the girls but was rejected. Believing the other girl was responsible for the rejection, he decided on this route to get ‘revenge’ on the two,” said a senior officer.
