Bhopal: Technology is throwing a new challenge at curbing terror every minute. Five persons arrested in Madhya Pradesh’s Satna for suspected links with a terror funding racket managed by Pakistani operatives have been found to have communicated with their handlers using an app which does not keep any record of the messages it sends, police said.

The Anti-Terror Squad of the Madhya Pradesh Police had on Wednesday arrested five people

The Anti-Terror Squad of the Madhya Pradesh Police had on Wednesday arrested five people, three of whom — Balram Singh, Sunil Singh and Shubham Mishra — were later brought to Bhopal. Police withheld the names of the two suspects.

According to the police, the five arrested were spying and sharing strategic information and funds for terror activities with operatives based in Pakistan.

“Thirteen Pakistani SIM cards which were used to make calls to foreign countries and account details used for making transactions in different bank were recovered from their possession,” said Riyaz Iqbal, Superintendent of Police, Satna.

“But what came as a surprise to the police was that these people used to communicate with their handlers through an app on which a message can be read by the person it is intended for while it is being typed on the mobile phone. One does not have to ‘send’ the message,” Chanchal Shekhar, IG, Rewa Zone said.

“So while records of video calls and WhatsApp message can be recovered, there is no record of messages ‘sent’ from this app,” said Shekhar.