170 names added fraudulently to list of Haj pilgrims

The names of 170 people were fraudulently added to the list of Haj pilgrims by hackers who allegedly misused the user name and password given by Haj Committee of India (HCI) to the UP State Haj Committee for entering the names of pilgrims on the HCI server.

Police have lodged an FIR under various sections of IPC and Information Technology Act at Hazratganj police station against 170 persons whose names were fraudulently entered and unidentified hackers on the complaint of UP's Haj Officer Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui.

According to the complaint, the UP State Haj Committee had formed eight departmental teams for uploading the data on pilgrims on the server of HCI and they were given the user name and password for adding and deleting names of pilgrims on the list. The user name and password were also known to two firms — Ms Abhishek Computers and Ms Rise Think Tank — which were employed for data entry and running the helpline of the committee.

In his complaint to the police, Siddiqui said that a total of 36,754 pilgrims' names were uploaded on the server of HCI by May 10. Of these, the names of 25,359 pilgrims were put on the list of provisionally selected pilgrims and the rest were put on the waiting list after online lottery on May 15.

But as many as 152 names were fraudulently added to the waiting list and 18 names were added to the provisionally selected list between May 17 and June 29. The matter came to the notice of the committee officials when one pilgrim from Meerut came to the committee with his passport documents but his name was not in the waiting list of Haj pilgrims available with the committee.

The officials also received complaints from several pilgrims that their names were misplaced from the selected list and waiting list of Haj pilgrims. The UPSHC also received the passports of 27 persons whose names were fraudulently entered in the waiting list.

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