Uttarakhand polls: Pithoragarh police summons 4 army personnel for tampering postal ballots

New Delhi, Feb 27: The Pithoragarh police have summoned four army personnel for allegedly tampering with the postal ballots in an army centre in Jammu. The issue came to light after former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat had shared a purported video of the incident.

Talking to the news agency ANI, Superintendent of Police Lokeshwar Singh said, "This viral video is of four soldiers of two Kumaon regiments of the army. It was made viral by making a video in Jammu. The person who sent and made the video is also a young man from 2 Kumaon. The police have sent a summon to all under 161 CrPC." The SP further informed that the names of the army personnel allegedly tampering with the ballot papers have been identified.

"This action has been taken after identifying the names of the army personnel seen in the video. The person to whom this video was sent and went viral for the first time in DidiHat has also been identified," he said. Further investigation into the matter is underway.

A few days ago, Harish Rawat shared a tweet which roughly translated, , "I am making a small video viral for everyone's information, in this how one person is ticking all votes in one centre of the army and even doing the same signature of all the people, See a sample of that, will the election commission want to take cognizance of it?"

Uttarakhand went for polling on February 14 for the 70 assembly seats and counting will be done on March 10.