The server hosting a Naxal propaganda website, popular among Naxal sympathisers in India, is located in China, investigations carried out by sleuths working with the security establishment have revealed.

In order to mask its true location, the administrators of the website, in connivance with the server operators, have tried to make it appear as if the server is hosted in Canada, by using a proxy server.

The website is used to share propaganda material, documents, statements of Naxal leaders and views of Naxalites justifying the killing of Indian security forces whenever they carry out such attacks.

As per sources in the security establishment, they have also been able to identify the individuals in India who are responsible for updating the website with statements, documents and pictures related to Indian Naxal leaders operating in the central region of India, especially Chhattisgarh.

In order to ward off unwanted attention, the website administrators have stated on the home page of the website that the “website is not based in India or owned and maintained by people from India, nor it is connected to the Naxals”.

The administrators of the website, in connivance with the server operators, have tried to make it appear as if the server is hosted in Canada, by using a proxy server.

This website, according to officers in the security establishment, is mainly operated by Naxals to gather support for their “movement” by way of justifying and legitimising the violent actions that they carry out. In one such latest “justification” that came after the killing of 25 CRPF soldiers in Burkapal, Bastar, Chhattisgarh, in April 2017, the Naxals released a statement on the website on 25 May stating that the security forces in Bastar were “killing” innocent villagers in the wake of the 25 April attack that was carried out by them. The statement “appealed” to journalists, civil society members, representative of Opposition parties and Left party members to visit Bastar in order to bring out the “atrocities” of the CRPF personnel, including “fake encounter killings”.

“The Naxals are in the last phase of their existence and they know this. They are not getting new recruits, ammunition and money. The ‘romanticism’ associated with Naxalism is finished and it is due to these reasons that the brains behind them are using websites and Facebook to keep themselves relevant and show that they are not mindless killers,” an officer tracking Naxal activity said.