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from Hindustan Times on Thursday, February 06, 2003

A 24-year-old engineer from Delhi has earned the dubious distinction of being the first person in India to be convicted for a cyber crime. A city court convicted Asif Azim for using an American citizen's credit card to make an online purchase.

Metropolitan magistrate Gulshan Kumar convicted Azim for cheating under IPC, but did not send him to jail. Instead, Azim was asked to furnish a personal bond of Rs 20,000, and was released on a year's probation.

Azim, who worked at a call centre in Noida, came across Barbara Campa's credit card number. Campa, who had a problem with her card billing, had consulted the call centre in May 2002. Since it was Azim who attended her call, he managed to talk her into revealing key details of her card on the pretext of updating billing data.

Armed with the information, on May 8, 2002, Azim bought an 85-inch colour TV and a cordless headphone through Sony-Sambandh.com, a Sony web site for NRIs. The cost of both items: $578.

But when Campa got the bill she refused to pay, saying she hadn't authorised the transaction. In July, Sony lodged a complaint with the CBI.

Meanwhile, after receiving the colour TV and headphone at his home, Azim moved to a new address in Gurgaon. However, a photograph taken by Sony officials when making the delivery undid his plan.

CBI officials soon traced the transaction to the call centre through its IP address. During inquiries at the centre, they showed the photograph to executives who identified it as Azim's.

When the CBI raided Azim's new home, they found that he had moved the TV set and the headphone to Aligarh, his hometown.

After a seven-month trial, Azim finally cracked. "Azim confessed his guilt in court on Monday," says Sony's counsel and cyber law specialist Pawan Duggal. "Taking his educational qualifications into view, the court decided to put him on probation instead of sending him to jail."

CYBER ROGUES GALLERY

Case 1: When a woman at an MNC started receiving obscene calls, CBI found her colleague had posted her personal details on Mumbaidating.com.

Status: Probe on

Case 2: CBI arrested a man from UP, Mohammed Feroz, who placed ads offering jobs in Germany. He talked to applicants via e-mail and asked them to deposit money in his bank account in Delhi.

Status: Chargesheet not filed

Case 3: The official web-site of the Central Board of Direct Taxes was hacked last year. As Pakistan-based hackers were responsible, authorities there were informed through Interpol.

Status: Pak not cooperating

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