Delhi Police registers case against EVM hacker Syed Shuja

New Delhi, Jan 23: Delhi Police Wednesday registered a case based on a complaint filed by the Election Commission regarding allegations of hacking EVMs and rigging polls levelled by self-proclaimed cyber expert Syed Shuja.

The EC asked the police to investigate the matter promptly for violation of certain sections of the IPC dealing with spreading a rumour to cause public alarm and under other provisions of related laws.

"Through media reports, it has come to the notice of the Commission that allegedly 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 its Section 505(1)(b)," the EC said.

Months ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, a self-proclaimed US-based cyber expert Syed Shuja at an EVM hackathon in London has claimed that the "entire" 2014 polls were "rigged". He further said that even the recent assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh were also rigged. He blamed the BJP for carrying out rigging of the electronic voting machines.

Shuja claimed that senior BJP leader from Maharashtra Gopinath Munde was murdered because he knew about EVM rigging and was about to expose the BJP. He, however, provided no corroborative facts to substantiate his claims. The Election Commission has rejected all his claims and written to Delhi Police requesting it to lodge an FIR and investigate the claims made by Syed Shuja.