Complaint against online votes' hacking in PCATP's polls filed.

ISLAMABAD -- At least four leading architects of the country have submitted a complaint to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)'s Cybercrime Wing, alleging that recent elections of Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP) have been stolen through hacking of online voting system.

The complaint has been filed under the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act 2016 by architects including S M Jahangir Khan Sherpao, Azhar M Sualehi, Farman Ullah Khan and Husnain Raza Khan. All these were amongst the contestants for elections of the council, a regulatory body set under the PCATP Ordinance, 1983.

Their opponents include Architect M Arif Changezi, among others, who is also the incumbent chairman of the council.

The counsel for the complainants confirmed over phone that a formal complaint had been filed and the Cybercrime Wing had formally started its initial probe on it.

According to the complaint, a copy of which is available with The Nation, the complainants have reported that on the night between 6 to 7 March, the electronic voting system through which PCATP elections were being conducted got hacked.

Next day, Oathsystems (Pvt) Limited, the IT company entrusted with carrying out on- line elections, submitted a report to the registrar PCATP. The...