Acknowledging this, Defence ministry officials said corrective steps were being taken to restore the website ``www.Armyinkashmir.Com'' which was installed only on August 18 this year.

The officials said hackers were trying to take over the website for the past seven days and suspected the hand of Pakistani intelligence agencies behind it.

A PTI correspondent, who monitored the site for four days since October 13, saw both the original as well as the doctored sites and downloaded several pages from it.

Although generally it is very difficult to take over dedicated websites, regular Internet sufferers warn that a website could be taken over by another user in case the norms of the ``Internic'', the international registrar of websites which givesdomain names on specific request, are and not followed and its fees and other charges are not paid regularly.

If this happens, any sufferer anywhere in the world can foot the unpaid bill, complete all procedural formalities and seek a change in the address or contact number of the website from its original one.

While on October 13, the website was taken over by someone having a Lahore phone number ``92-42-8629323'', the site was taken over by an unknown group. This group said ``this site is currently maintained by many people who feel for Kashmiris and ongoing massacre in Kashmir under the control of Indian Army.''

This distorted site contains pages of so-called backgrounders on the Kashmir issue prepared by the Pakistan government. The website from which these backgrounders were taken is called ``www.Pak.Gov.Pk/govt/kashmir.Htm''.

The site also contained the names of Britain-based individuals and organisations who, its operators said, could provide more information on the ``real situation'' inKashmir.

This correspondent, who hit the website over a dozen times during these days, saw that the ``guest book'' of the original site was partially restored on October 14.

The ``guest book'', meant for eliciting comments of those surfers who hit the site, was full of anti-India superlatives and four-letter adjectives.

Even this morning, the site, registered in the name of Lt Col M K Bawa, was being operated by anti-India operatives.

While refusing to comment on the ``embarrassing situation'', some ministry officials felt that there was an urgent need to have an Internet policy which was currently absent.

There has been considerable delay on this count by the ministry, whose defence planning staff is the nodal agency for such matters, they added.