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Summary Indian media reported that Karnataka terror suspects made Skype calls to Saudi Arabia.
The 11 persons arrested on terrorism charges made calls on the internet to contact the kingpins of a plot to kill high-profile individuals in Karnataka, southern Indian state, Skype was their favoured mode, Indian media reported on Saturday.Most of these men, including an engineer with Defence and a journalist, are highly educated. They used internet telephony to keep their communications with their Saudi Arabia-based kingpins secret, and to cut costs.We have seized laptops and accessed the calls made by the suspects. The calls have been traced to Saudi Arabia, deputy chief minister R Ashoka, who is in charge of the home department, told TOI. More than 100 terrorism-related SMSs and emails have been accessed.Police say the arrested men had plans to kill Dharwad MP Prahlad Joshi, MLC and newspaper baron Vijay Sankeshwar and journalists Vishveshwar Bhat and Prathap Simha. Six of them were arrested in Bangalore on Wednesday and the others in Hubli.The state government has asked Interpol to probe the conversations and share its inputs with India. The suspects also made video calls on smartphones and laptops. Cyber experts say VoIPs biggest advantage over standard telephone systems is its low cost. Internet calls to Saudi Arabia are cost-effective and difficult to trace.
