Mumbai: The Mumbai Police is awaiting forensic reports to determine if sensitive or personal data was stolen from Union Minister Piyush Goyal’s residence during a theft which took place last month.
A domestic help working at Goyal’s house in Mumbai’s plush Napean Sea Road was arrested Tuesday for allegedly stealing silver artefacts, watches, clothes, cash and mobile phones. The accused, Vishnu Kumar Vishwakarma, was arrested in Delhi and has been booked for theft, criminal breach of trust and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.
“We recovered five mobile phones from the accused after which the complainant (Goyal’s manager) raised concerns of data theft since Piyush Goyal is a minister and often has
work-related sensitive data stored at home. We had combed through all the cellphones but found nothing,” said a senior police officer.
Also read: Piyush Goyal to skip RCEP trade pact meeting as fear of China mounts
He also said that it was possible the accused may have deleted some data from the mobile phones and shared it with others.
“We have sent the cell phones for cyber forensic tests to the Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Kalina. We will know more once we have the report,” he added.
No other device or hard disk was stolen from the house, the officer added.
The theft was discovered by Goyal’s wife on 19 September, following which the minister’s manager had registered a complaint at Mumbai’s Gamdevi police station. The original complaint, however, had not mentioned any concern of data theft, the police officer said.
Also read: CBI probes student data theft after CBSE, coaching centres are accused of leak