Data Theft: Telangana Govt Forms SIT, Issues Look Out Notice For IT Grids’ Ashok Dakavaram 

Hyderabad: The Telangana government on Wednesday set up a nine-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the alleged data theft case involving an IT firm called IT Grids Pvt Ltd. A Look out Circular (LOC) has also been issued against the owner of the company.

The team of cyber experts and police officials would carry out a thorough investigation in all aspects of the case to bring out the facts and circumstances leading to commission of crime, they said.

The new SIT is headed by IG Stephen Ravindra along with Kamareddy SP N Swetha, Cyberabad Cybercrimes DCP Rohini Priyadarshini, Narayanpet DSP G Sridhar, Madhapur ACP N Shyam Prasad Rao, Cyberabad Cybercrime ACP Ch Y Srinivas, Hyderabad CCS Inspector B Ramesh and Hyderabad cybercrime Inspector G Venkat Rami Reddy.

They will immediately take over the investigation of the case registered at Madhapur police station and all other related cases registered in Telangana. Meanwhile an LOC against Dakavaram Ashok, CEO of IT Grids India Pvt Ltd, by the Ministry of Home Affairs on a request from Cyberabad Police was issued and to prevent him from fleeing the country all airports have been alerted.

Four teams had earlier been formed to locate Ashok after he failed to appear before the police despite being summoned as part of the investigation in the case.

It is believed that Ashok Dakavaram, the CEO of IT Grids India Private Limited, is in a safe location in the AP capital region area. The police also say that he could also be in possession hard disks which could contains vital clues in the case.

According to senior police officials, notices were sent and they were awaiting a response from Amazon Web Services and Google Play Store with whom the database is said to have been stored seeking further information.

The police have also initiated the process of writing to the Andhra Pradesh government, Unique Identification Authority of India, Election Commission and Registrar of Companies for more details.

IT Grids has been accused of 'theft of data' of voters through Sevamitra a mobile app which it had developed and was used by the TDP in Andhra Pradesh.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the company got illegal access to various personal and sensitive data of individuals such as Aadhaar, electoral rolls and government schemes and voters information related to various political parties, which could have been misused for illegal purposes.

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