HYDERABAD: High drama unfolded on Friday after unknown persons tried to remotely access the laptop used by Supreme Court-appointed inquiry commission probing the alleged encounter of four accused in the Disha rape and murder case. The attempts came even as the commission was recording statements of officials during a hearing.
At least two such attempts were made by two IDs - ‘IT Cell-SDNR’ and ‘CID’ leading to a suspicion that someone was trying to hack into the commission’s database. The IT team immediately alerted the commission’s secretary S Sasidhar Reddy who informed the Telangana high court.
The commission’s chairman, Justice (retd) V S Sirpurkar also asked the state counsel, Uma Maheshwara Rao, to verify details of the IDs and find out why they were accessing the laptop.
The Supreme Court had appointed the commission after the four men, accused of raping and murdering a young veterinary doctor on the outskirts of Hyderabad, were killed in an alleged police encounter in December 2019.
After the attempted intrusion came to light, the commission’s secretary checked with the state police’s liaison officer, who said some of the police department officials may have tried to access their unit database from the network of the commission.
The IT team, however, told the secretary that the persons who tried to obtain access to the laptop could have done so only if they knew that particular laptop’s ID.
The laptop hosts the video conferencing platform through which everyone logs in. Justice Sirpurkar has been attending the hearings from Nagpur, while members, Rekha Sondur Baldota and D R Karthikeyan have been joining in from Mumbai and Delhi.
One of the commission's advocates, K Parameshwaran, has been logging in from Delhi, while the second counsel, Virupaksha Dattatreya Gouda, has been directly appearing before the commission from high court, along with the secretary, state counsel, other advocates and the deponents.
As the computers and IT staff used by the commission were provided by the Telangana high court, the secretary informed the registrar general and registrar (IT) of the court about the intrusion.
