Turkish cyber group hacks Abhinav Bindra's Twitter account

What's the Story?

Former Indian shooter Abhinav Bindra's Twitter account was seemingly hacked by a Turkish Group, who posted pro-Turkish military messages on his handle.

"Operation Afrin, I support Turkey," Bindra had seemingly tweeted on Monday night, along with a picture of a Turkish fighter holding a gun in front of the backdrop of the country's flag.

The tweet was later taken down.

In case you didn't know...

A number of celebrities from India, like Abhishek Bachchan, Anupam Kher and Kiran Bedi, have fallen prey to the hacker group, which goes by the name of "Turkish Cyber Army".

More recently, sports manufacturer Yonex's Instagram account was also hacked. The Japanese manufacturers had seemingly tweeted that they had stopped sponsoring India's ace shuttler PV Sindhu, and would not be continuing ties with any player from "poor" countries like India. Yonex had later clarified that its account was hacked, and issued an apology to Sindhu.

Heart of the matter

Abhinav Bindra is one of the most revered athletes in India, being the country's only single-sport Olympic gold medallist. Hence, a tweet like this by Bindra surprised one and all.

Abhinav Bindra's Twitter account was hacked.

However, this tweet was later taken down, and Bindra's account was temporarily suspended. It has since been restored.

The tweet in question refers to Operation Olive Branch, which Turkey had conducted in the North Syrian region of Afrin. While Turkey had claimed that the operation was conducted to combat terrorist organisation ISIL, reports have suggested that the latter are not present in the region.

What's next?

While Bindra's account has since been restored, it remains to be is any action will be taken against those who hacked it.

Author's take

While such acts of hacking may be amusing to some, it is unclear what the motive behind such cases is. Someone like Bindra, who has been deeply associated with sports, is not likely to tweet on such issues, and it becomes very clear that his account has been hacked, when such tweets appear under his Twitter handle.