The Election Commission of India on Monday said that it was exploring what legal options can be taken on the live hacking event, organised in London yesterday. In its statement, released moments after the hacking event came to an end, the ECI said that it defended the ‘fool proof nature’ of EVMs used in India.
The statement by the ECI read, “It has come to the notice of Election Commission of India that an event claiming to demonstrate EVMs used by ECI can be tampered with, has been organised in London.
“Whereas, ECI has been wary of becoming a party to this motivated slugfest, ECI firmly stands by the empirical facts about fool proof nature of EVMs deployed in elections in India.”
The statement went on to reiterate that the ECI exercised ‘rigorous Standard Operating Procedures’ during the manufacturing of EVMs. It said, “It needs to be reiterated that these EVMs are manufactured in Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) under very strict supervisory and security conditions and there are rigorous Standard Operating Procedures meticulously observed at all stages under the supervision of a Committee of eminent technical experts constituted way back in 2010.”
It concluded the statement by saying that the ECI was contemplating legal actions on the Monday’s development. “It is being separately examined as to what legal action can and should be taken in the matter,” the statement read.
A US-based hacker Syed Shuja had sensationally claimed that the 2014 elections were rigged and former Union Minister Gopinath Munde was murdered because he was about to go public on the issue of EVM tampering. He also claimed that journalist Gauri Lankesh was murdered after she agreed to publish details on EVM fraud. He, however, did not support his claims with any evidence.
Shuja said that aside from the BJP, the SP, BSP and the AAP too approached him to know if EVMs could be hacked.