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EC lodges complaint against Syed Shuja

Last Updated 11 March 2019, 11:07 IST

The Election Commission (EC) has lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police against Syed Shuja, who addressed journalists in London through Skype on Monday and claimed that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) had been hacked to rig the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

The EC on Tuesday lodged an FIR against Shuja, claiming that he had violated Section 505 (1) (b) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by saying that he had been in the EVM design team and could hack the machines used in the elections in India.

The Section 505 (1)(b) of the IPC provides for imprisonment for three years for anyone who might be convicted of making, publishing or circulating “any statement, rumour or report with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, or to any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the state or against the public tranquility”.

Shuja claimed that BJP leader Gopinath Munde had been killed because he had been aware about the hacking of the EVMs for manipulating the outcome of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in favour of the party.

He went on to claim that journalist Gouri Lankesh had come to know about the EVM hacking in 2014, but had been killed before making it public.

The EC dismissed the claims made by Shuja as “motivated slugfest”.

“(The) ECI (Election Commission of India) firmly stands by the empirical facts about the foolproof nature of (the) ECI EVMs deployed in elections in India,” the poll panel said on Monday.

The commission on Tuesday wrote to deputy commissioner of police of New Delhi district asking him to register a case against Shuja and conduct an investigation promptly.

The EC noted that it had held an “open challenge” in June 2017 for all to come forward and take an attempt to demonstrate any vulnerability of the EVMs, but nobody turned up for such demonstrations.

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(Published 22 January 2019, 11:45 IST)

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