None will be spared in data theft case: Sajjanar

Hyderabad: Cyberabad Police Commissioner V C Sajjanar on Monday said that they would not spare any person involved in the alleged data theft case of IT Grids India Private Limited even though how big the culprits are.

He said they have clear cut primary evidence to move further into the investigation. Since the issue is pertaining to the personal information and sensitive data of individuals related to Aadhaar, electoral roll, Andhra Pradesh government schemes beneficiaries and voter’s information related to various political parties, they moved further into the case based on the guidelines from the Election Commission.

The Commissioner of Police strongly objected to Andhra Pradesh Police’s intervention in the data theft case. Narrating the sequence of events, he said that on March 2, Madhapur police received a written complaint from T Lokeswara Reddy (40), a resident of Indu Fortune Fields in KPHB alleging the misuse of personal information and sensitive data of individuals by IT Grids India Private Limited through “Sevamitra app.” Basing on the complaint, the police registered a case under sections 120 B, 379, 420, 188 IPC, 72 and 66 B of IT Act and took up the investigation.

The Cyber Crime police along with Madhapur police conducted search operations at the company’ premises in the presence of its employees namely R Bhasker, K Phani Kumar, R Vikram Goud and G Chandra Shekar and seized a lot of electronic gadgets, hard discs, other incriminating material, mobile phones and written documents.

During the investigation they found that the data base is said to be have been stored with the Amazon Web Services. The said IT Grids company which is running a Sevamitra app of TDP, has collected constituency-wise voters’ data and affiliations of each voter party wise that is TDP, YSRCP, Jana Sena and neutral. They also collected information of voter ID details, caste details and address of the voter.

Prima-facie, they found that the company IT Grids has got illegal access of various personal and sensitive data of individuals which can be misused for illegal purposes.

The CP said they have also received number of complaints regarding deletion of voters and also came to know that about 45-50 criminal cases were registered in various places of AP about deletion of voters.

Sajjanar said they issued a notice to Amazon Web Services for production of data base relating to the app and other data. He added further that he would write a letter to UIDAI and the Election Commission for more details. If needed, he would also write to the AP Government to seek more details and basing on the forensic analysis of data, the arrests will be made as per law.

The CP strongly condemned the intervention of AP police in the case. After a case filed in Madhapur, the AP police filed a missing case of four employees of IT Grids company in Guntur district and with a team of police officials reached to Hyderabad and tried to threaten the complainant T Lokeswara Reddy and tried to create tension.

He opined that the behavior of AP police is not fair and tried to mislead the High Court also. Even after the TS police officials clarified that they were questioning the four employees based on a case registered, the IT Grids company owner filed a habeas corpus writ petition to mislead the court.