Cops crack down on 'keypad jihadis' in J&K

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Police has a new task at hand -- identify the 'keypad jehadis' who spew venom on social networking sites to try and create a law and order situation in the state by spreading on the Internet rumours or giving communal colour to any event.

The police has registered cases against five twitter handles and filed complaints with service providers against such misleading posts on Facebook and WhatsApp so that necessary action is taken at the earliest, officials have said.

The officials said a communication had been sent to the micro-blogging site for providing details of the twitter handles so that punitive action could be initiated at the earliest as it would help in reining in what is called 'keypad jehadis'.

Police has laid special emphasis on monitoring the social networking websites and also various groups created on messaging services like WhatsApp, Telegram and similar such tools available on the Internet, they said.

The idea behind the crackdown on 'keypad jehadis' was to ensure that police could concentrate more on nabbing or eliminating terrorists with real guns rather than those who wage war against the state machinery using keypads.

The officials said post-2016, the misinformation campaign from some groups in Kashmir as well as in Jammu was at its peak with each party trying to project an incident for their political goals.