The websites of prominent educational institutions and some government departments today came under cyber-attack by purported Pakistani hackers who posted anti-India messages on them.
A group, which identified itself as "Pakistan Haxors Crew (PHC)", hacked at least 10 official websites including those of premier educational institutions like Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and IIT BHU.
They splashed anti-India and anti-Army messages on the websites along with links to videos that shows "Indian brutality in Kashmir."
The hacker group said, "nothing deleted or stolen. Just here to deliver my message to Indians."
Other websites which have been hacked are University of Kota; Army Institute of Management and Technology, Greater Noida; Defence Institute of Advanced Technology; Army Institute of Management, Kolkata, National Aerospace Laboratories and Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS).
The message on AMU website read, "Greetings Government of India, and the people of India. Do you know what your so-called heroes (soldiers) are doing in Kashmir? Do you know they are killing many innocent people in Kashmir?
"Do you know they have raped many girls? Do you know they still are raping girls in Kashmir? How would you feel if your brother, sister, father and mother gets killed :(? How would you feel if someone rapes your mother or sister; Won't your life and your families be destroyed?"
The group claimed that the hack was in response to hack of Pakistan Railways website by an alleged Indian group.
"This hack is in response to Code-Man's hack of railways.gov.pk (http://www.zone-h.org/mirror/id/29230257?zh=1) and in the solidarity of innocent Kashmiri People being killed by Indian Army!" the message on AMU website read.
The websites of most central universities are managed by the government-run National Informatics Centre or NIC.
Delhi University Registrar Tarun Das said, "The website was inaccessible from outside the campus for some time due to some problems in the domain name. Servers were pointing incorrectly to another site."
"The problem was detected and immediately rectified by contacting ERNET, which has provided the domain name for University of Delhi," he added.
The AMU spokesperson said that the matter has beenbrought to their notice and their IT department is looking into the issue.
The authorities at the two IITs could not be reached forcomment.
The hacking comes amid students' unrest in the Kashmir Valley.
Earlier, an alleged Indian group hacked nearly thirty Pakistan government websites to ‘avenge’ the sentencing of former Indian Nay officer Kulbhushan Yadav.
A message on a hacked Pakistani website read, “Charges against Kulbhushan Jadhav are fictitious, fake and farcical. There is no evidence of wrong doing by him. This is an act of “premeditated murder’. Earlier it was Sarabjeet, now it’s Jadhav.”
Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer, was awarded death sentence by a awarded death sentence earlier this month on the charges of espionage and sabotage activities in the country.
