A self-proclaimed US-based EVM expert Syed Shuja, who on Monday made shocking revelations about the hacking of EVMs is facing flak from various quarters for his unsubstantiated claims. The Foreign Press Association has censured the hacker for propagating serious allegations without backing them up with evidence.
The alleged EVM expert hacker Syed Shuja had claimed that he had designed the EVMs used in India, later adding that the EVMs used in 2014 Lok Sabha polls were rigged. He also asserted that BJP leader Gopinath Munde was aware of the tampering of the EVMs which resulted in his murder.
The Foreign Press Association strongly disassociates itself with any claims made by the speaker Syed Shuja during the #IJA event in London yesterday. Not one of the masked speaker’s accusations have so far been corroborated.
— Foreign Press Association (@FPALondon) January 22, 2019
However, the Foreign Press Association which was a co-organiser of the London hackathon event rubbished hacker Shuja’s claims and termed them unsubstantiated. The FPA disassociated itself from the claim made by the masked hacker Syed Shuja and said that not a single claim made by the hacker has been corroborated. It may be noted that the so-called hacker had addressed the ‘hackathon’ via video conferencing with his face hidden behind a mask.
The Italian Journalist Deborah Bonetti, who was moderating the event and asking questions to the hacker also concurred with the FPA and said that the hacker had no solid proof for the “serious allegations” that he made about the elections in India and in London.
The hacker had also claimed that NIA officer Tanzil Ahmed was killed because he was investigating the Gopinath Munde death case. But that allegation is completely baseless as the incident was investigated by CBI, not NIA. Before shot dead by two persons, Ahmed was handling several cases related to the Indian Mujahideen (IM), and was not associated with any investigation into the death of Gopinath Munde.
NIA has also ruled out any link between investigation into Gopinath Munde’s death and the death of NIA officer Tanzil Ahmed. The agency has said that the officer was shot dead over a property dispute, and his killer Muneer had also admitted to his crime.
The doctors at AIIMS who did the postmortem on the body of Munde have also ruled out the possibility of homicide in the incident. Dr. Sudhir Gupta, who heads the forensic medicals department at AIIMS and other doctors involved in the postmortem of the deceased BJP leader’s said that it was not a case of homicide, but a case of road accident. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which had investigated the incident, had already declared in 2014 that Gopinath Munde died of the injuries he sustained from the road accident.
The Election Commission of India had yesterday issued a statement rejecting the outrageous claims made by the hacker. The EC is currently contemplating over taking legal action on the matter. It has claimed that EVMs are manufactured under highly secured environment and its hacking is not possible.
