2 Ludhiana residents held for hacking signboard to display insults against Capt

Accused claim that they hacked the electronic sign board for fun, but the police are probing their political affiliation and combing through their bank accounts to determine whether they had been paid to hack the board; they also extended support to AAP

Two men were arrested for hacking a variable message sign board on the national highway near Libra village so that it displayed messages abusing Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh and supporting the Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday.

Commuters flagged the abusive messages against being flashed against the Captain on the signboard on August 1; later the police arrested the two hackers. (HT Photo)

The accused, Kunal Singla, a resident of New Model Town and Yogesh Puri of Maharana Pratap Nagar, assemble and install LED boards for a living. They claim that they hacked the electronic sign board for fun, but the police are probing their political affiliation and combing through their bank accounts to determine whether they had been paid to hack the board.

“On July 31, the accused went to Kasauli to install the LED board of an eatery, while returning they stopped for food at Libra village and hacked the variable message sign board using a mobile application and programmed the board to display abuses aimed at the CM, along with the slogan ‘Chahunda e Punjab, Kejriwal di Sarkar’ (Punjab wants Kejriwal to come into power),” said superintendent of police (SP, investigation) Manpreet Singh.

The accused, who run their LED board business from Jammu Colony, were booked under Section 500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Information and Technology Act at the Khanna police station.