The Hyderabad police on Friday arrested seven accused agents, who hacked the Regional Passport Office (RPO) website (www.passport.gov.in) and blocked the slots under the tatkal online booking.
In a statement by Hyderabad Police Commissioner, A K Khan, the inspection was started when the passport authorities informed them that the slots in the Tatkal online booking were not accessible by the applicants.
Further investigation into the matter unveiled that the RPO website was hacked and the slots were blocked by the hackers.
Since the past two months, nearly 3,000 applications were sold through the online slots by the hackers. Applicants paid between Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 5,000 for the applications.
Details of the investigation
A huge rush of applications was seen since February this year and the applicants failed to get slots. On the other hand, Gorantla Lathadar Rao (36), a shop owner and holder of PG Diploma in Computer Applications, found bugs on the passport office website and accessed the National Information Centre (NIC) server.
Due to this, Rao had an easy access to the passport applications and he submitted them on the website with confirmed dates, before the actual official release of the dates.
Shaik Subhani (34), a travel agent from Narasaraopet in Guntur district, registered passports online under the Tatkal scheme and was given a commission of Rs. 100 per application.
Subhani further hired seven agents in the city and they gave him the passport applications. These applications were passed on to Rao who updated the passport applications, along with dates on the website.
More about the hackers
The hackers were so active that they blocked the Tatkal slots immediately as they came online.
Apart from Rao and Subhani, other accused agents involved in the scandal are Mohd Jahangir (45), Bhooma Srihari (56), Giddala Chinna (29), Syed Valiuddin (30), and Kondreddy Penchal Reddy (35).
Kaleem and Srinivas, two other agents, are still absconding.
A laptop, wireless internet modem, computers and copies of passport applications were recovered from the hackers. Till now, the cops have not declared the involvement of any employee of the passport office.
The website has been updated after the attacks were unearthed.
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