Telangana police seize IT firm's office in data theft case

Telangana's Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing data theft case on Friday seized the office of IT Grids, the firm providing IT services to Andhra Pradesh's ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

Intensifying the probe, the SIT seized the office of the company located in Madhapur in the information technology hub here.

The police, which already seized some hard-disks and electronic gadgets, also took possession of computers and some other material and sealed the office. Some police personnel were deployed there to prevent entry of any person.

The nine-member SIT, constituted on Wednesday, is analyzing the data in the hard-disks. It is also making efforts to arrest IT Grids CEO D. Ashok, who remained at large.

Cyberabad police had booked a case against IT Grids on March 2 on a complaint by T. Lokeswara Reddy that sensitive data including personal information of citizens of Andhra Pradesh was being processed illegally by the company without consent of the citizens.

The data was allegedly used by the company for an app developed by it for TDP cadres.

This triggered a row between the Telugu states with Andhra Pradesh alleging that TDP's data was stolen under a conspiracy by Telangana's ruling party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and YSR Congress party.

Telangana government constituted SIT headed by Inspector General of Police Stephen Ravindra for a thorough investigation into the case.

In a tit-for-tat, Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday set up SIT to probe data theft case against Telangana.

This followed a case registered in Guntur district on a complaint by cabinet minister K. Kala Venkat Rao, who is also president of Andhra Pradesh unit of TDP. He alleged that a conspiracy was hatched between YSR Congress leaders and some senior police officials of Telangana to steal the data belonging to TDP.

He also alleged that they conspired to engineer en-masse requests for deletion of names from the voters' list.

Additional Director General of Police and Transport Commissioner N. Bala Subramanyam, who is heading the Andhra Pradesh SIT, along with some other members of the team, on Friday met Director General of Police R.P. Thakur to discuss the case.

Bala Subramanyam said if necessary they would go to Hyderabad for the investigations but this would depend on the evidence they get in the case.

--IANS

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