Family IDs under scanner after 3 held for tampering with data

Days after three contractual employees of the Citizen Resources Information Department (CRID) were arrested on the charges of tampering with the Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) data, all such family IDs have come under scanner.

The particulars under the ‘Deletion of unwanted member’ column of these IDs were changed on the portal in the past few months. A team of experts, including the police and security analysts, has been scanning the IDs to ascertain whether the process was followed or not while removing the name of any member from the PPP, claimed the sources.

On Saturday, the police arrested Yogesh Kumar, a district manager at CRID, zonal head Amit Kumar and operator Vikas Kumar on suspicion. At present, they are on the police remand and are being interrogated about the “wrongdoing”.

Sources said the offence came to the fore last month when Yogesh himself complained to ADC Saloni Sharma claiming that someone hacked his portal log in and approved 12 family IDs through it.

“Acting swiftly, Saloni apprised the state authorities of the CRID, requesting them to inquire the matter to find out the veracity. The state authorities immediately sent its expert to Jhajjar. In the meantime, the ADC forwarded the complaint to the police for registration of an FIR and thorough investigation into the matter. Later, the CRID expert with the help of police officials detected that the changes had been made in the details without following any procedure,” maintained the sources.

The sources claimed the particulars in the IDs were changed without following the procedure in lieu of money and some WhatsApp chats found in the cell phones of the accused also indicated towards it.

Talking to The Tribune, the ADC said the column of “Deletion of unwanted member” was added to the PPP to facilitate those who wanted to get any name removed from the ID following any valid reason. “Mostly, the name is removed from the PPP ID in cases of marriage, divorce, death, etc. For which, supportive documents are required, hence those IDs from which names were deleted are being scanned,” she added.

Ajay Kumar, SHO, Cyber Police Station, said the possibility about the involvement of other people in the case cannot be ruled out, hence suspected IDs were being scanned and ID holders were being called for questioning. ACP Dharambir Singh refused to divulge any details of what the accused disclosed during the police remand stating that the investigation was still underway.