MRO’s ID sold for `10K only, database hacked
The worth of the login id and password of a Mandal Revenue Officer (MRO) in Hyderabad, which was used to access the government database, was `10,000. This was found by the cyber crime police of Hyderabad during the investigation of the Aasara Pension scheme fraud case.
During the last week of August, the cyber crime police had registered a case into the alleged fraud of Aasara pension scheme, where the names of 255 eligible pensioners were removed and new persons were added to the list of beneficiaries illegally.
The police on Tuesday arrested four persons – Mohammed Aslam, Syed Sohailuddin, Mohammed Mohsin and Mohammed Imran Khan, all residents of Hyderabad, involved in the fraud.
Though initially it was unearthed that 255 beneficiaries were additionally added by replacing the details of existing pensioners, the police who verified the details of the pensioners have found that around 340 names were added to the list of beneficiaries.
The accused persons added the names from December last year in a phased manner and
they were approved without scrutiny by any senior officials in the Revenue Department.
Senior officials from Hyderabad police said, “Accused Imran, who was working as an outsourcing employee at the MRO office, Bandlaguda, obtained the login id and password of the MRO, Charminar, which he sold to his friends for `10,000.”
Aslam and Sohailuddin played key roles in the offence. “Soon after obtaining the Aadhaar card and bank details of a person, they would upload the details through their mobile phone by logging into the government database. It was all done during the intervening nights, to avoid suspicion,” said the officials.
Aslam, along with two others, was earlier arrested by the cyber crime station police in October 2017, for committing a similar offence. The accused had uploaded the details of a person into the pensioners' database at the MRO office, Bandlaguda, said the officials.
Meanwhile, the police are also planning to take into the other arrested persons to find how many such ineligible persons were added in the Aasara Pension beneficiaries’ list. Aslam and Sohailuddin have uploaded details of over 200 such people.
A few days ago, the cyber crime police received another complaint from a man, a private employee in the city, that a woman had collected the Aadhaar cards and bank account details of his family members, including two school-going children, telling them that they would get money deposited from the government. The private employee sought action against the woman.
Coincidentally, the woman was found to be an associate of the arrested persons who had hired her to collect the details of members of the public to enter into the database of the Aasara Pension scheme.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior police official said, “There could be more numbers of such fraudulently entered beneficiaries across the state. The concerned department has to do scrutiny before approving the beneficiaries’ list as it causes a huge loss to the state’s exchequer.”