Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (Express photo by Vishal Srivastav) THE Twitter handle of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s office was hacked into in the early hours on Saturday, with officials saying that an FIR has been registered in the matter and “strict action will follow”.
The alleged hack happened around 12.30 am on Saturday and officials are still trying to ascertain the duration of the hack.
“An attempt was made to hack the official Twitter account @CMOfficeUP of the Chief Minister’s Office on April 09 at 12:30 am by anti-social elements, who had posted some tweets …,” a tweet in Hindi by the CM’s office read.
The hackers had changed the profile picture of the account. 
A message on “How to turn your BAYC/MAYC animated on Twitter” was posted on the timeline. Speaking on Saturday, ADG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said an FIR was registered with the Cyber Cell of UP police against unidentified persons. “An investigation is being done very seriously. We will identify those responsible and will take action against them,” he said.
The hackers had replaced the profile picture with that of a cartoon and posted several tweets. The account has more than 40.53 lakh followers. Over 300 tweets were posted as spam and previous old tweets were also deleted by the hacker.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is in Gorakhpur, said the agencies concerned are investigating the matter. Contacted by The Indian Express for comment on the matter, a Twitter official said, “We have nothing to add here at this time, we’ll let you know if that changes.”
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
