NEW DELHI: The extortive, threatening messages being sent to MLAs in
Uttar Pradesh has found a new target: information commissioner D P
Sinha received the threats on WhatsApp, allegedly from underworld don
Ali Budesh, on Sunday night.
The messages were followed by a video call at around 1.30 am which Sinha did not answer. When contacted, Sinha confirmed to TOI that he had received the calls and messages.
The sender, who claimed to be Dawood Ibrahim’s arch-rival, the Bahrain-based don Ali Budesh, demanded Rs 10 lakh from Sinha within three days. He threatened that if his demands were not met, he would eliminate members of Sinha’s family one by one.
The sender called Sinha from the number “+1 (903) *** 4240”. Sinha is a 1979-batch IPS officer who was special director in the
Intelligence Bureau before being appointed secretary, security, in 2015. He was deputed to the
Central Information Commission in 2016. Sinha joined the IB in 1987 and spent most of his career there in different ranks, looking after counter-terrorist operations in the main.
Pakistan IP address used to send threats
Police sources say Budesh had studied in a boarding school near Pune and joined the underworld in Mumbai after that, gradually developing a network among Mumbai’s upcoming gangsters.
He is also said to be the mastermind of the attack on actor-turned-director Rakesh Roshan. Budesh fell out with Dawood over extorting a builder. Dawood had threatened Budesh to stay away from the builder but he had refused.
Later, Budesh gunned down Desai to prove his dominance in the area, setting off the feud between the two underworld dons. He also eliminated a few of Dawood’s men who dealt in fake currency in Nepal. Police are also probing similar threats to 19 BJP MLAs in UP and three others.
The investigation so far has revealed that the extortion messages sent to the MLAs over WhatsApp originated from a number registered as a landline in Texas, US. A Pakistan internet protocol (IP) address and gateway were also used in this case to send the messages in which MLAs were told to pay Rs 10 lakh each or face dire consequences.
Sources said police in Delhi and UP are trying to track down the sender. When contacted by an intelligence officer, Budesh purportedly denied having sent the messages. Investigators contacted the sender on the originating number and tried to talk to him but he refused communication, saying he knew police were trying to track him down.
Budesh has purportedly denied having sent the messages so police are also looking into the possibility of an impostor trying to make money in the don’s name. The probe has indicated that the number may have been generated using a special software or through websites that can be accessed on the dark web.
Initial investigations also indicate that one of the IP addresses is located in Pakistan. Sources say that the dark web, or deep net, acts as a platform for grey markets where hackers already possessing confidential details such as credit card numbers, phone numbers and social security details meet their buyers.
Many forums also provide easy access to software and applications which help generate random phone numbers to mask the original source. It is used as a secondary layer of security — over and above using encrypted chat services — to mask a user’s identity
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