CCS takes up probe into GHMC document case

The central crime station has taken up the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation online document manipulation case.

Police suspects that data entry employees working for the GHMC manipulated the property documents of private individuals after taking bribes from interested parties.

Although a case has now being booked following a complaint from a property owner named D. Rama Bhai, top GHMC officials have requested the Hyderabad police commissioner to launch a thorough probe into the matter.

The CCS cyber crime police, who will be investigating the case, will also be checking if anymore online documents have been tampered by the suspects.

"If any malpractices are found during the investigation they will be added to this case, and a comprehensive probe will be carried out," said CCS DCP Avinash Mohanty.

Earlier, two outsourced employees of GHMC, B. Polaiah and M. Lakhan Singh, who were data entry operators, were suspended for tampering with a property document. The suspects had replaced the name of the original owner D. Rama Bhai with the name of another person named K. Koteshwar Rao, who is suspected to have paid the duo.

Rama Bhai had approached the police when she found that her name was replaced with Rao's name when she went to pay advance property tax. After an internal inquiry the duo were suspended.

Official GHMC sources revealed the shocking information that most outsourcing employees have access to secret digital keys, which can be used to edit online documents of land, property etc.

Since many GHMC officials are not well versed with computer skills, lion's share of online works have been assigned to outsourced employees.

GHMC sources say no proper security is in place to prevent of malpractices online. It is likely that there can be more cases of document tampering.