On the day when the Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi is celebrating her 65^th birthday, hackers broke into the official website of India’s ruling Congress party official website and defaced the profile of Ms. Sonia Gandhi. The profile of the party president was replaced with text having sexual innuendo which included a reference to a Pakistan based e-mail address. However, it is still unknown as to whom the hackers are.

The Congress Spokesman, Mr. Tom Vadakhan stated that the site was shut down as soon as the interference was detected and that the computer department of the party is investigating the matter of intrusion. The public could not access the site, after they became aware of the intrusion, for a few hours due to the closing down of the site by the computer department of the Congress.

It is interesting to note that this act of vandalism took place a few days after the Telecom Ministry came down with an iron hand on Google, Facebook and Twitter to do away with offensive material on these social media networking sites. This request by the government had invited disapproval and censure from the internet users who were complaining of censorship.

In a report in New York Times this Monday it was said that Kapil Sibal had shown a Facebook page that criticized Sonia Gandhi to certain executives six weeks ago and had told them that it was unacceptable.

Various official Indian websites have been attacked time after time. The country’s top police agency’s website was attacked last year by a group who called themselves as Pakistan Cyber Army. Such acts of vandalism should be condemned as it does not have any democratic sanction and steps must be taken to prevent such interference with the websites of government agencies and parties.

Congress website hacked, Profile of Sonia Gandhi defaced  (www.congress.org.in/) -The Congress party official website temporarily shut down after the hacking incident.

Report by Radhlakshmi R