FIR against former Assam NRC official after data vanishes from website

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Hours after the data stored online on Assam’s National Register of Citizens went missing from cloud, an FIR was lodged against a former NRC official.

The case was lodged in Paltan Bazar Police Station of Guwahati, reported Northeast Now. The cops have begun an investigation.

The FIR was filed against the official by the office of the Assam NRC coordinator on February 12 for not “surrendering” the password for the central data record system before quitting her job.

Speaking to the media, an NRC official has said: “We have filed (FIR) against an NRC officer on Wednesday for not providing the password to the data records system. She quit without handing over the password, because of which no authorised official is being able to access any data.”

According to a Times of India report, the official quit her job soon after her boss Prateek Hajela had been transferred to Madhya Pradesh in November. However, the exact date since when the NRC authorities did not have access to online data is not known.

Though all the data from the website ‘nrcassam.nic.in’ has vanished, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs claimed the data only went offline because of a technical glitch as their contract with IT company Wipro had not been renewed. It has assured that all the data is safe and will be restored soon.

Wipro has complained of pending dues worth Rs 70 crore from the Assam NRC office. The authorities at the Bengaluru-headquartered company claimed that their subscription for cloud storage had expired in October itself. However, as a goodwill gesture, they allowed the NRC office to obtain free services till January.

Meanwhile, an Assam-based NGO called the Assam Public Works has filed an FIR against Hajela, alleging he indulged in cybercrime during the six-year period when he supervised the NRC exercise. Abhijit Sarma, President, Assam Public Works, said: “The CID has been requested to register a case against Hajela for tampering with public data.”