The Election Commission has lodged an FIR against Syed Shuja who claimed to have hacked the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). A case was registered under the Indian Penal Code (BNS) and the IT Act on November 30 at the cyber police station in South Mumbai.
On November 14, a video of Syed Shuja went viral. In this he was claiming that he could hack EVMs used in Maharashtra elections. He also offered the leaders that he would hack the EVMs of 63 seats if they paid Rs 53 crore.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Maharashtra said that claims of EVM hacking are totally baseless and false.
Shuja said that he has EVMs for 281 of the 288 seats in Maharashtra.
Hacker Shuja lured the leaders to win the elections During the Maharashtra elections, Syed Shuja approached some leaders to win the elections. He claimed that he could hack EVMs using US Defense Department technology. For this he will take money. Shuja says he works on contract with the US Defense Department.
Syed Shuja is a cyber security researcher based in Hyderabad. Currently in Canada.
Shuja made a similar claim in 2019 as well Syed Shuja also made a similar claim at the Indian Journalists Association (IJA) press conference in London on 21 January 2019. Shuja said he worked with Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ICIL) from 2009 to 2014. Was part of the team that built the EVMs used in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He then said that these machines could be manipulated using specific frequencies.
Shuja also claimed that the EVMs were hacked in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and BJP won based on that. Former Congress leader Kapil Sibal took issue with these claims and questioned the reliability of EVMs.
The Election Commission filed an FIR In 2019 too, the Election Commission registered an FIR against Shuja in Delhi, but there is no official information about the matter since then. However, the commission said that the EVMs are completely secure, which cannot be connected to any network including WiFi or Bluetooth.
Before the Maharashtra elections, there was a controversy regarding EVMs.
Musk said- EVMs can be hacked World's richest businessman Elon Musk wrote on social media platform Form X on June 15 – EVMs should be abolished. It is at risk of being hacked by humans or AI. Although this risk is low, it is still very high. This should not be voting in America.
Rahul also expressed concern Congress leader Rahul Gandhi reposted Musk's post and said – EVM in India is like a black box. No one is allowed to check it. Serious concerns are being raised about transparency in our electoral process. When institutions lack accountability, democracy becomes hypocritical and the possibility of fraud increases.
Former Minister's Answer – This is not possible in India BJP leader and former IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said – According to Musk, no one can create secure digital hardware, this is wrong. His statement may apply in the US and elsewhere – where they use regular computing platforms to build internet-connected voting machines.
Indian EVMs are secure and isolated from any network or media. No connectivity, no bluetooth, no wifi, no internet. It means there is no way. Factory programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed. EVMs can be designed as in India. It is not possible to hack it in India. Alon, we'd be happy to run a tutorial.
This case also reached the Supreme Court in India In April this year, the Supreme Court heard the demand for 100% cross-checking of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) votes and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. The Supreme Court rejected the petitions related to this demand. Apart from this, people belonging to many political parties are questioning the EVM. However, the Supreme Court has expressed faith in EVMs several times.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
