Government Cites ‘Security Implications’ to Deny RTI Query on Identity of Nehru Vandal // Does the IP address belong to the NIC itself?
NB: Will the Prime Minister, Home Minister and National Security Advisor please tell us why the identity of an internet vandal is a national secret? Is it true sirs, that the NIC itself has planted these slanderous fictions? What good will accrue to India's security by slandering Jawaharlal Nehru? Also (following the news of ABVP activists vandalising a statue of Don Bosco in Guwahati) will they tell us whether the GoI is committed to encouraging hooligans of the Sangh Parivar to engage in violence designed to intimidate all Indian citizens who do not subscribe to the RSS way of thinking? And (following the Mumbai police raid and assault on unmarried couples), whether the BJP considers love, sex or even friendship outside marriage to be a cognisable offence requiring police action? Is this the Government of India or a government of hooligans? DS
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Citing unspecified “security implications”,
the National Informatics Centre is refusing to disclose the
identity of the person who vandalised the Wikipedia page of Jawaharlal
Nehru by posting scurrilous information about him.
In response to an RTI application, the NIC, software
solution provider to the government, said it was withholding the information
based on inputs received from the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT)-IN.
The reply, however, does not cite any exemption clauses provided in the
transparency law. “Based on the input from CERT.IN, it is seen that
there may be security implications in sharing the information.
Thus the same may not be shared,” the response from the CPIO of the
NIC, Swarup Dutta said.
Another RTI application, filed by journalist Rahul M drew a
similar response, with the CPIO adding: ‘No larger public interest will be
served by providing this information.’ The RTI applicant had sought from the Department
of Electronic and Information Technology the details of IP address
164.100.41.28 which was allegedly used to alter the Wikipedia page on
prime ministers of India in which malicious information about Nehru was
posted on it.
Specifically, on June 26, 2015, someone using the IP address
had inserted the following bit of text into the page:
In fact both Nehru and Jinnah were paramours of Edwina
Mountbatten, who blackmailed them with their sexually explicit nude photos with
her in the bed and made them sign the partition papers. Edwina never slept in
bed with her husband Lord Mountbatten, who was a gay, anyway. She was married
to him only to gain access to the powers that be and armtwist the the two
leaders to agree to partition.
Also on the same page, information about Nehru’s house was modified to read:
Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889 inat 77,
Mirganj, a red light area in Allahabad in British Raj|British India. Allahabad
District Magistrate Neeraj Gupta admitted that the house which was
Nehru’s birth place is a den of flesh trade. But all the records of the exact
location of the house are missing from Government files. Prostitutes have
divided the house into several parts , modified it and even got the house
number altered for fear of its acquisition by the Government. H.N.Bahuguna,
when he was Chief Minister of U.P., asked the Allahabad Commissioner in 1972 to
construct a Memorial at Nehru’s birth place in Mirganj. However, nothing was
actually done because no one wanted to stir the sleeping dog and alert the
Indian Public regarding the true nature of Nehru’s background.
The NIC was also asked to provide the names of
the officers who used the IP address at the time of content on Wikipedia
being edited. The applicant had also sought to know if any inquiry was
initiated in the matter. Surprisingly, the NIC did not cite any of the
10 subsections of Section 8 of the Right to Information Act for
withholding information which is mandatory under the Act.
Though the identity of the culprit is unknown, we do
know he or show likely works for a government department because the IP address
belongs to NICNET, which provides internet access to the government. We
also know the unknown editor shared an interest in other members of
the Nehru family (specifically Motilal and Gangadhar) and in Nihal Chand,
Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers in the Narendra Modi
government.
We know this because other edits made from the same IP
address in recent months on Wikipedia include:
- The addition of the following line (on June 26, 2015) to the biography of Gangadhar Nehru, grandfather of Jawaharlal: “Gangadhar was born as a Muslim by the name of Ghiasuddin Ghazi but changed his name to a Hindu Ganga Dhar to escape from British clutches.”
- The addition (on June 26, 2015) of a reference to the page of Motilal Nehru that he was the son of Gangadhar Nehru, who was a Muslim Ghiasudin Ghazi.
- Multiple, factual edits to the page of Nihal Chand, MP from Rajasthan and a minister in the Modi government
Earlier edits to Wikipedia entries from the same IP address
include the following:
- Hariharpur (on April 22, 2013) – “This village is under Ekma block ; 7 km from Ekma and 35 km from Chapra. This is very beatiful vilage of district and resident of this village are prosperous.”
- Literary references to thistles (on July 17, 2012) – “In Yashar’s Kemal book whereas the thistles symbolize oppression and Nature’s antagonism, in ”Hadji Murad”, the last great novella of Leo N. Tolstoy, thistles stand for taits of adaptability and adamancy that human beings exhibit because of their lust for life.”
- The dates of the non-cooperation movement (on June 25, 2012) – “This movement lasted from September 1920 to February 1922.”
- List of pornographic actresses by decade (on July 23, 2012) – Addition of “Sunny Leon”
The IP address belongs to NIC itself, according to this:
see also
