A desktop engineer from the State Information Technology (IT) Department was detained on Tuesday for allegedly stealing data from the Revenue Department, after the government filed a complaint with the Marine Drive police station.
The engineer allegedly hacked into 28 computers connected to the Mumbai Collector, Deputy Collector and other tehsil offices. The computers contained sensitive files related to land matters, senior officials said.
Government sources said Paresh Khedekar was a contractual engineer with an empanelled firm, S2 Infotech, which supplies around 35 desktop engineers to clean and maintain systems. However, the engineers are only allowed to inspect and open systems when a query or a complaint is raised via the State-run Mahaonline system. “But in this case, no complaint had been raised and he was found opening up computers one by one since 7 a.m. today,” a senior official said. When the department staff confronted Mr. Khedekar, he could not provide an explanation, officials said.
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The engineer was later apprehended by the Marine Drive police.
IT Department officials said they are investigating the matter. “He has been employed with us for the past six years and this morning was found opening up systems without a query being raised. We will take this case of data theft very seriously if some truth is found in it,” said a senior official of the IT Department.
Late in the day, the department said it has terminated the engineer’s services with immediate effect.
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