Senior Kerala police officers say they have found little to substantiate Director of Industries and Commerce K Gopalakrishnan's claim that his phone was hacked before new WhatsApp groups, with him as the admin, were created for IAS officers, allegedly on the basis of religion.
On October 30, a WhatsApp group called “Mallu Hindu Officers” was formed, in which senior IAS officers were added as members, and Gopalakrishnan was the admin. It was deleted hours later as several officials flagged the impropriety of such a group.
As the issue snowballed into a controversy Gopalakrishnan said his phone was hacked after which 11 groups, including one called “Mallu Muslim Officers”, were formed.
On November 4, the IAS officer filed a complaint with the Thiruvananthapuram city police, reiterating his claim.
Thiruvananthapuram city police commissioner G Sparjan Kumar said that police already received a mail from WhatsApp which said that only live groups can be tracked and that no information can be provided on deleted groups.
“Another mail has been sent to Google and WhatsApp to detect any suspicious activity from an external link or malware on the phone. Our first priority is to know whether the mobile phone was hacked. The cyber forensics team is on it,” said Sparjan Kumar.
No evidence yet to show that phone was hacked
The report from WhatsApp has not conclusively proved that the mobile phone was hacked. The forensic report of the mobile phone also said the gadget was reset three or four times. The officer (Gopalakrishnan) sticks to his version that the mobile phone was hacked, but there is no answer on why the gadget was reset. Since all data was deleted, we could not find much to back the claim that the phone was hacked,” a senior police officer said.
Police sources said a report has been submitted to the DGP, and that it is now up to the government to take a decision.
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