Five people were arrested by the Andhra Pradesh CID on Tuesday for allegedly forging the digital signatures of senior officials posted in the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) to forge Chief Minister Petitions (CMP) and sending them to various departments to earn money.
The CID took Kanamarla Srinu, Gutthula Sitaramayya, Nalajala Sai Ram, Bhukya Chaitanya Naik and Abdul Razzak into custody, police said on Saturday. "For some time, the digital signatures of CMO officials have been used to generate CMPs. Based on a complaint from the CMO officials, we have registered a case," said a CID official in a press release.
Incidentally, the accused persons were using the e-office login username and password of CMO secretaries to create CMPs by using requests of MLAs and MPs without the authorisation of the officials concerned and sending them across to various departments for implementation. Police identified Srinu to be the prime accused in this case who used to work in officer Revu Muthyala Raju's office as a junior employee.
Deploying the knowledge he had gained on how to use the e-office, Srinu initially used it for his monetary benefit by creating forged CMPs and sending them across to any department he wanted. Further, he connived with Sai Ram, Sitaramayya, Naik and Razzak, who were working under different senior officials to form a gang, take petitioners' requests along with MLA or MP request letters, upload them on the e-office and extort between Rs 30,000 and Rs 50,000 from the petitioners.
Over time, police identified that 66 CMPs were fake, following a scientific probe, including learning that the accused used to share the extorted money among themselves. Police booked a case under Indian Penal Code Sections 420, 465, 471 read with 120B and Section 66C and D of the Information Technology Act while the accused are in the process of being sent in judicial remand.
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