Ludhiana | Ex-staffer booked for deleting social media account of newspaper

The managing director of the vernacular daily, Balwinder Singh Saini, had filed a complaint to the Ludhiana police on June 6 saying that an unidentified accused had hacked and deleted the newspaper’s Instagram account on May 25

Six months after the social media account of a vernacular daily was hacked and deleted, a former staffer was booked on Friday.

A probe was carried out by the assistant commissioner of police (ACP, cyber cell), who traced the listed phone number to one Neeraj, a former colleague of Saini, who runs his own web channel. (Representative Image/HT File)

The accused, Amritpal Singh of Maharana Partap Nagar, a cameraman, said he had deleted the newspaper’s Instagram account as he was upset with his former employers.

The managing director of the daily, Balwinder Singh Saini, had filed a complain on June 6 saying that an unidentified accused had hacked and deleted the newspaper’s Instagram account on May 25. The accused had also linked the account to a different phone number so that it could not be recovered.

A probe was carried out by the assistant commissioner of police (ACP, cyber cell), who traced the listed phone number to one Neeraj, a former colleague of Saini, who runs his own web channel.

Howeber, Neeraj said that other people associated with the web channel also used the mobile number registered on his name. Later, the police zeroed-in on Amritpal who confessed to using Neeraj’s phone number to delete the social media account.