Mumbai, May 3: The Enforcement Branch of the Mumbai Police is closing in on the people who posted objectionable material on Chhatrapati Shivaji and Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray on Google’s social networking site www.orkut.com some months ago. It has tracked down two Internet Protocol addresses of the computers from which the offenders floated these material.

Considered almost an impossibility in the past, the police were able to achieve this breakthrough as a result of an agreement reached between Orkut.com and the Mumbai Police in February this year. This was first reported by Newsline.

“The working agreement we entered into with the website has yielded great results, and Orkut has provided us great cooperation in such matters. When we received complaints about anti-Shivaji and derogatory postings about Bal Thackeray, we immediately contacted Orkut, and they provided us two IP addresses. The location, which is in India, cannot be revealed to the media at this stage, as we are trying to track down the culprits,” Deputy Commissioner of Police, Enforcement, Sanjay Mohite told this paper.

During a meeting in early February between Mohite and three representatives of Orkut.com, including a top official who flew in from California, the agreement to seal cooperation in such matters of objectionable postings on the site was discussed. As per the agreement, all it would take in the future to nail the offenders, would be a single e-mail sent from the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the Enforcement Branch to the California-based company. Orkut.com would promptly respond by sending details of the IP address concerned and Internet service provider used for the post.

“This working agreement is significant, as Maharashtra has the highest number of complaints regarding objectionable postings on such websites,” said Mohite.

Before the agreement, the police could do little except contact the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) in New Delhi to block the objectionable forum, and wait for the next one to pop up. There was no way of tracking down the culprits.