Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested two people from Nadiad, including a minor, for spreading cyber terror against India during Operation Sindoor.

Both are accused of launching Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks on the website of the Government of India and posting content against India.

Jasim Shahnawaz Ansari, 18, a resident of Nadiad, and the minor were operating a Telegram group named Anonsec. They allegedly carried out DDOS attacks to bring down various Indian websites and posted screenshots of the websites being down along with inflammatory messages in the group.

Deputy Inspector General of Gujarat ATS, Sunil Joshi, said that Inspector DB Prajapati received intelligence about the hacking of Indian websites during Operation Sindoor.

“A team was formed to monitor the suspects. Following the investigation, Jasim and the minor were taken into custody, and their mobile phones were sent to Forensic Science Lab (FSL),” Sunil Joshi said.

During interrogation, it was found that both Jasim and the minor had failed in class 12 but had knowledge of hacking encrypted chats. It was revealed that the accused had animosity related to Operation Sindoor.

“They had learned hacking techniques from YouTube, using tools and languages like Python, Pydroid, and Termux. They used DDoS attack tools from a website named GitHub, cloning and modifying them to bring down websites,” DIG Joshi said.

They allegedly targeted Government of India websites to wage cyber war and created a backup Telegram channel named ELITEXPLOIT for the EXPLOITXSEC channel, using the ID @BYTEXPOIT and later renaming it Anonsec.

For the past nine months, both had been involved in hacking and taking down Indian websites. In April and May, they attacked more than 50 government and other websites.

On May 7, over 20 websites, including those related to defense, finance, and aviation, were attacked. Evidence of these attacks was shared in their Telegram group.

A case has been registered against them under IT Act Sections 43 and 66(f), which pertain to cyberterrorism. Investigations are ongoing to determine who assisted the accused and whether they received any financial support. Bank accounts of both accused are under scrutiny.

FSL has retrieved data backups from their mobile phones, and efforts are underway to assess the impact of the cyberattacks.