HYDERABAD: Just hours after Inspector General of Police (IGP) Stephen Ravindra, in-charge of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), began looking into cases registered against IT Girds India Private Limited, websites and operated by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and its affiliate bodies were found to have been shut down. Official portals and websites of the party have been shut down in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Telugudesam.org, the party’s official portal, was most notably not working. Even online transactions, such as donations to the party, have been put on hold by the party’s IT wing. Meanwhile, the controversy surrounding the data breach refused to die down. Sources told Express that senior officials working in the Information Technology (IT) and Communications department of Andhra Pradesh violated the rules by transferring official and government data after the raids happened in Hyderabad.
Stephen Ravindra confirmed that IT Grid India Private Limited and Blue Frog have transferred important data from servers and that at least three servers went missing after the raids that were conducted on IT Grid’s Madhapur office. In their preliminary probe, SIT officials have ascertained that Ashok Dakavaram, CEO of IT Grids, was in nexus with the key person who was instrumental in the former’s firm getting sensitive government data.
Officials learnt that Dakavaram had participated as a guest in several meetings in Amaravati with senior officials in the IT wing. Officials also said that they are yet to ascertain as to how the stolen data was stored. They said they are working on compiling a forensic report and will soon get information from Amazon and Google regarding data storage.