The Twitter account of Swapan Dasgupta, also a Rajya Sabha and Presidential Nominee, was hacked on Tuesday, Indian media reported.
According to the initial reports, the account was hacked allegedly by a Turkish group that calls itself the ‘Turkish Cyber Army’ or “Ayyildiz Tim”, the same group that reportedly targeted the accounts of US President supporters in January last year.
The hackers had tweeted “LOVE PAKISTAN” from Swapan’s account twice and had tagged DG ISPR in the posts.
One such post had retweeted DG ISPR’s post explaining the agony of a 14-year-old Kashmiri boy after the Indian army brutally shot him with pellet guns.
It is reported that Anupem Khair’s (a Bollywood celebrity) account was also hacked by the same group, but has now been retrieved. However, Swapan’s account still remains suspended. The hackers had tweeted from the latter’s account that their actions are a form of resistance against the injustices being carried out against innocent civilians.
The hackers also claimed through a tweet from the MP’s account that they could also have hacked US President Trump’s account, but called it an “injustice to attack high ranked official of a nation”.
In wake of these hackings, Twitter, through its support team, promptly issued a message for the victims assuring that the company is working to resolve the difficulties faced by “small number of Indian users”. The support team also asked the users to refrain from opening links coming via direct messages or “DMs”.
