VPN services suspended in J-K’s Rajouri to prevent election data leakage

Jammu, Aug 3: The J&K administration has suspended Virtual Private Network (VPN) services in J&K’s Rajouri district to prevent the uploading of sensitive data during the upcoming Assembly elections.

“To prevent uploading of sensitive data and leakage of election data during the upcoming Assembly elections, an immediate suspension of VPN usage in Rajouri district has been ordered. The suspension would continue till the conclusion of the election process in Rajouri,” reads an order issued by District Magistrate Rajouri.

The suspension has been done under section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

“There has been an unprecedented increase in VPN usage across the district in recent days which triggered suspicion about the cyber threats,” the order reads.

VPNs are designed to encrypt data and mask users from firewalls thereby concealing user activity apart from preventing surveillance on the internet.

Hilly districts of Poonch, Rajouri, Doda, Kathua, Reasi and Udhampur in the Jammu division have witnessed terrorist ambush attacks against security forces and civilians during the last two months.

After reports that a group of hardcore foreign terrorists, believed to be 40 to 50 in number, are responsible for these attacks, the army deployed over 4,000 trained soldiers drawn from the elite Para commandos and those trained in mountain warfare inside the densely forested areas of those districts.

Terrorists used the element of surprise to carry out ambush attacks and then disappear into the forests of these hilly areas.

The deployment of the army and the CRPF together with the strengthening of the Village Defence Committees (VDCs) managed by the residents, has deprived the terrorists of using the element of surprise to carry out such attacks.

After the security forces started aggressively going after the terrorists both in the Jammu division and the Kashmir Valley, the terrorists are now increasingly being engaged in exchange of firing with the security forces.

“They either get killed during such encounters are remain on the run. This prevents them from surprising the security forces by carrying out sly attacks,” a senior police officer said.