High drama prevailed at the residence of whistleblower Thummala Lokeshwar Reddy in Hyderabad when Andhra Pradesh police tried to detain him for lodging a data breach complaint against the IT firms engaged by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
The incident took place at a gated community in KPHB Colony where respective police personnel of two Telugu States came face to face over Mr. Reddy alleged detention.
The KPHB police of Cyberabad swung into action and foiled the attempt of Guntur policemen to take Mr. Reddy into custody and shift him to Andhra Pradesh.
Further, they sought to know the reason behind their presence in the whistleblower’s house and after a brief discussion, the KPHB police personnel recorded the details of their counterparts before they were sent off. Later in the afternoon, Mr. Reddy meet Cyberabad Police Commissioner V.C. Sajjanar and appealed him to provide adequate security to him and his family members citing further threat from AP Police and TDP activists.
Around 10.30 a.m., the AP police barged into his house in mufti and abused him in foul language in the presence of other family members, Mr. Reddy told The Hindu.
“They were there in my house of more than 45 minutes, threatening me with dire consequences and used foul language for lodging a complaint against TDP funded IT Grids (India) Pvt. Ltd and Bluefrog Mobile Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which were given access to the enormous amount of official data in respect of the beneficiaries of various government schemes,” he said.
According to Mr Reddy, the ruling party has also provided private data of 3.70 crore voters of A.P., including Smart Pulse Survey reports, Aadhaar details, colour photographs of the voters and their mobile numbers too.
“Everything was amalgamated and uploaded in the TDP’s Sevamitra app used by the party cadre for advancing the party’s electoral prospects,” he said.
The TDP activists were given tasks to identify non-TDP voters so that the government can delete their names from electoral rolls based on the voter profiling, he alleged.
Financial status, caste, benefits acquired from the government and even the political preference of the voters was included in the app, which helps the ruling TDP to easily identify the non-TDP sympathisers, Mr Reddy, a data analyst associated with YSR Congress Party, said.
“After identifying the YSRCP supporters, they will send the digital format of Form 7 for deletion of name from the voters’ list to State Election Commission,” he said, adding that it is a clear case of AP voters’ data breach by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.