Borewell death

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“Even as the government made several efforts to rescue Sujith, we observed a decaying smell from the 600-foot borewell in which he was trapped,” Tamil Nadu revenue administration, disaster management and mitigation commissioner J Radhakrishnan told the media.

Tiruchirappalli district collector S Sivarasu said, “Since it was more than 80 hours since he was trapped there the body was almost in a decomposed state.”

Wilson’s parents buried him in a funeral conducted by the local parish priest at a nearby graveyard around 8.30am, about four hours after his body was pulled out.

Rescuers tried to dig a parallel tunnel, which would connect the borewell through a hole made sideways, but the rocky terrain made the task difficult. Attempts to use robotic devices to lower ropes to latch onto the boy’s wrist failed on Saturday. A thermal camera had been used to monitor the child’s temperature while oxygen was supplied through a pipe.

Initially, the child was stuck at a depth of about 30 feet but subsequently slipped further down, and the body was finally pulled out from a depth of 88 feet, officials said.

Hours after the incident, the Madras high court orally observed whether the government needed a “dead body” for implementation of each and every rule.

A division bench of justices M Sathyanararayanan and N Seshasayee was hearing a petition seeking a direction to authorities for strict implementation of guidelines issued by the Supreme Court, and for the enforcement of thetamilnadupanchayats(regulations of Sinking of wells and Safety Measures) Rules 2015.

The plea was filed by V Ponraj, a scientist who had worked with former president APJ Abdul Kalam at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

In oral observations, the court also said the media was not streaming anything constructive in creating public awareness on the implementation of rules and regulation on borewells and tube wells, but doing live coverage on the rescue operations that eventually ended on a tragic note.

The court directed civic authorities to produce details on the action taken against violators who had failed to comply with the conditions stipulated for digging borewells and tube wells, and set November 21 as the next date of hearing.

Wilson’s death was the latest in a series of incidents of children falling into borewells in Tamil Nadu. According to a report in news agency Press Trust of India, at least 13 children have fallen into unused borewells in the southern state, and just three of them were rescued alive over the past 15 years. Wilson’s fall into the borewell was the third such incident since April 2014.

Tamil Nadu’s opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) criticised the government after Wilson’s death. “The boy died due to the negligence of the Tamil Nadu government... If the government had approached the issue only with experts and without the interference of ministers, Sujith could have been saved,” said DMK president Stalin.

Congress leader and Wayanad parliamentarian Rahul Gandhi tweeted, “I’m sorry to hear about the passing of baby Sujith. My condolences to his grieving parents and his family.”

Before leaving for his Saudi Arabia trip, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Monday expressed his hope that Wilson would be rescued. “My prayers are with the young and brave Sujith Wilson. Every effort is being made to ensure that he is safe,” the PM had said then. tainly popped,” he said.

An official in a cyber security division of the government, asking not to be named, said that a tip-off was received from “a friendly country” and a team of experts was rushed to the facility located in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu in early September. “The foreign government’s help allowed for a quick response,” this person added, asking not to be named.

Refusing to give more details about the second incident that Singh referred to, he said the disclosure must be made by the government alone. “I think the government should be the one disclosing. I’ve told [National Cyber Coordination Centre chief] Lt Gen Rajesh Pant so. Responsible disclosure is a normal practice. Everyone gets hacked. It must be relayed with confidence and clarity,” he added.

The NCCC chief, retired Lt Gen Pant, said he would not be able to offer a comment immediately since he was travelling.

Former cyber security coordinator Gulshan Rai said indications were of an incident that did not appear to be serious. “There are no reports of any attack after some initial reports. Had systems been compromised I am sure there would be more reports. India has very robust response systems and have proved their capabilities repeatedly in the past. I’m sure there is no reason to worry,” he said.

The department of atomic energy (DAE) did not respond to request for a comment. MALWARE CLUES

The disclosure of the alleged incident regarding the Kudankulam network was first triggered by a Twitter post on October 28 from an anonymous account, “@a_tweeter_user”, which pointed to a data file uploaded on a cyber security firm’s website. The file purported to show clues resembling a malware called Dtrack, which was identified in late September by Russia-based Kaspersky Labs.

In a report published on September 23, Kaspersky researchers said the malware’s targets included “banks and research centres in India”.

“According to our telemetry, the last activity of Dtrack was detected in the beginning of September 2019,” said the report.

Kaspersky researchers said some of the programming and execution characteristics of Dtrack, and a similar malware it labelled ‘Atmdtrack’ that was found infecting Indian ATM machines, suggested a link with the Lazarus group.

The group, the report added, had targeted Seoul using a similarly designed malware in 2013. Its members are unknown, but are believed to have ties with the North Korean administration. On September 13, the US department of the treasury imposed sanctions on what they said were three North Korean state-controlled hacking groups, including Lazarus.

Governments and private corporations across the world deploy a wide variety of mechanisms to protect their networks from being hacked, with the most sensitive services often protected by what is referred to as an air gap. An air-gapped network is believed to be closed and inaccessible unless the access is done physically. In 2010, American and

Israeli spy agencies are reported to have used a malware called Stuxnet, which “jumped” the air gap — it is believed to have required an initial human role to infect the first target device — and mount an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Researchers have since demonstrated using novel ways, such as using the computers’ speakers at a frequency not detectable by human hearing, the ability to jump the air gap.