Daily Times

LAHORE –  Mobile phone hacking by using Viber application and using the data of 200 lady doctors to blackmail them has proved to be the biggest Scandal in software hacking in the country.

Young Doctors have sent a letter in this regards to CEO Microsoft Company Bill gates. This was stated by YDA Pakistan President Dr. Rana Sohail and other office bearers during a media briefing on Monday.

They said that the personal mobile data of more than 200 female doctors was hacked by a criminal gang by using Viber application but the Govt. of Punjab and police is silent on the matters so YDA is being forced will to launch a strong protest on this issue.

YDA president has appealed to CEO Microsoft Company to take notice of the matter and change the way by which Viber is accessed via laptop computers and requested that the code system should be abolished. Whatsapp application is much safe to use than Viber. YDA has appealed to public not to use those software applications that they are not well versed about. The social networking scandal sparked in 2015 when as many as 200 women had coerced in to paying money in a scandal involving popular social networking website Facebook. Most of the victims are said to be lady doctors affiliated with five hospitals of the provincial capital. According to a police report, an unknown man was blackmailing the women for money and threatened to leak their private records on social media after hacking their Facebook accounts.

Police had launched an investigation into the issue after registering a case against the unidentified person. Some victims have paid money to the blackmailer through mobile phone credit before the scandal came to fore in Punjab where a massive child sex abuse scam has disclosed earlier in 2015.

YDA activist Dr Salman Kazmi, a complainant in the case said over 200 women were targeted and harassed. Dr Salman had told the police around 50 had either been deprived of money or blackmailed in other way. The Gawalmandi police had registered a first information report under section 25-D of the Telegraph Act and 506 and 385 of the Pakistan Penal Code against unidentified people for harassing medical students and doctors of government teaching hospitals of Lahore in 2015.

Dr Kazmi said a majority of the victims are from Fatima Jinnah Medical University, Mayo Hospital, Children’s Hospital, Jinnah Hospital, and Social Security Hospital. He added that the suspect had sent photo shopped work and other personal information of a doctor to her in-laws after she refused to accept his demands. He said the suspect trapped a doctor of Mayo Hospital and met her at a fast food outlet.

There, the doctor managed to take his picture by her mobile phone and shared it with her male colleagues to pass it on to law enforcement agencies. Dr Kazmi said that the 25-year-old suspect is a resident of Toba Tek Singh. His other credentials like national identity card, passport, cell phone record and family background have been obtained by the officials of a sensitive agency. In September 2015, CIA police has arrested the prime suspect in the case pertaining to blackmail and harassment of lady doctors of various public hospitals in the provincial metropolis.

The police took the suspect, Abdul Wahab Alvi, into custody from hilly area of Naran after tracing his hideout. He had gone underground when some of the victims came forward with complaints and sensitive agencies started pursuing him for posing as their employee.

The culprit resident of Layya district, Abdul Wahab harassed more than 200 young lady doctors of the public sector hospitals of the provincial capital by hacking their social media accounts.