Cops file FIR against EVM ‘hacking expert’

NEW DELHI: The police have registered an FIR against US-based cyber expert Syed Shuja for “violating” the law by making allegations that the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were “rigged”, and that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Gopinath Munde was killed as he knew about the “hacking” of EVMs.
Shuja claimed to have worked with the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) between 2009 and 2014.

A police officer said that the FIR was lodged under Section 505 1(B) of the Indian Penal Code against Shuja on Tuesday at Parliament Street Police Station on a request mEade by the Election Commission of India (ECI). 

In its letter to the police, the Commission wrote that Shuja’s claims made through video conferencing in London violated the IPC, particularly Section 505, which deals with “public mischief”. “Through media reports, it has come to the notice of the Commission that one Syed Shuja, on January 21 in London, claimed that he was part of the EVM design team and he can hack the EVM used in elections in India. The act of Shuja is violative of IPC, particularly Section 505(1)(b),” the EC wrote in its letter to the police.

Shuja had alleged, “If his people had not intercepted the BJP’s attempts to hack the transmissions during this year’s Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, they would have won those states as well.”

He claimed to have stopped the transmission during the Delhi Assembly elections in 2015 and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) emerged the winner. 

The ECIL, however, debunked Shuja’s claims that he was an employee at the company, which designs and develops EVMs.