Ahmedabad: Gujarat ATS on Monday arrested an 18-year-old youth, Jasim Shahnawaz Ansari, from Nadiad for his alleged involvement in cyber terrorism. ATS officials say investigations revealed that Ansari intensified attacks after India’s Operation Sindoor was launched in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack.According to ATS officers, Ansari and a few other juveniles allegedly carried out cyber attacks on more than 50 Indian govt websites between April and May 2025. These included websites related to defence, finance, aviation, urban development, and several state govts.The arrest followed intelligence inputs received by the Gujarat ATS during surveillance operations. As per ATS officials, Ansari and his associates had created a Telegram group named AnonSec, where they discussed and executed DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. These attacks aimed to bring down websites by overwhelming them with traffic.The ATS found that Ansari used online platforms like YouTube to learn Python programming, and downloaded cyber-attack tools from GitHub. These tools were used through apps like Termux and Pydroid to execute the DDoS attacks.“He later verified the success of the attacks using checkhost.net and shared screenshots in the AnonSec group along with anti-India messages such as ‘Hi, India we just took down your shield and servers.’ Ansari, along with like-minded juveniles, launched cyberattacks using various handles and changed group names frequently. They spread anti-national propaganda by posting about successful attacks,” said a release from the ATS.The investigation also revealed that Ansari intensified attacks after India’s ‘Operation Sindoor’ was launched in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror incident.On May 7, 2025, 20 govt websites were targeted and messages like “India may have started it, but we will be the ones to finish it” were posted on their group, said ATS officers.An ATS officer said that Ansari has failed in class-12 science recently and another juvenile, aged 17, is in class-12.ATS officials began investigating whether the accused acted independently or were influenced by foreign entities. Further examination of the tools, software, and digital links is ongoing. ATS officers are trying to get digital footprints in the case.Gujarat ATS registered an FIR under Sections 43 and 66F for the charges of the Information Technology Act for cyber terrorism.