New Delhi (PTI): The Election Commission on Friday termed as "baseless" the allegations made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that the poll authority was indulging in "vote theft" for BJP and asked its officials to ignore such "irresponsible" remarks.

Continuing his campaign against the Election Commission, Gandhi had claimed to have "open and shut" evidence of alleged poll irregularities by the poll authority and said that it would have no place to hide.

"The Election Commission ignores such baseless allegations being made on a daily basis, and despite the daily threats being given, asks all election officials to ignore such irresponsible statements and work in a fair and transparent manner," the EC said in response to the comments made by Gandhi.

Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, likened the evidence that his party has on alleged poll irregularities to an "atom bomb", and said that when it explodes the Election Commission will have no place to hide in the country.

Gandhi said his party had suspicions of poll irregularities in Madhya Pradesh assembly polls in 2023, then in the Lok Sabha polls and then the Maharashtra assembly polls.

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Ramgarh (Jharkhand) (PTI): Jharkhand police on Thursday said it has unearthed a network of interstate cyber frauds and arrested four miscreants for fraudulent transactions through a bank account in Ramgarh district after complaints of 274 suspected transactions in 24 states.

The states where complaints for fraudulent transactions were registered included Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

The action followed inputs received through 'Samanvaya portal', a centralised, web-based platform launched by the Union Home Ministry to curb cybercrime.

"We arrested four cyber miscreants after a current account with Kuju (Ramgarh) branch of the State Bank of India was found to have registered suspected financial transactions in 24 states with the help of the Pratibimba portal of the Home Ministry through the Samanvaya portal," Ramgarh Superintendent of Police Mukesh Kumar Lunayat said.

During the probe, police found that the account was opened under the MSME Udyam Registration scheme in the name of Shree Ganesh Enterprises, he said.

The account had been linked to as many as 274 complaints from different states related to cyber fraud and illegal fund transfers.

The registered proprietors of the enterprise were identified as Rahul Gupta (37), Ravi Kumar Verma (34), and Ajay Sharma (33), all residents of Ramgarh district, a statement from the Ramgarh police said.

During interrogation, Rahul Gupta and Ravi Kumar Verma revealed that they had opened multiple current accounts at the behest of Ritesh Agrawal alias Munna (40) and Sonu Kumar Jha (34).

They admitted receiving Rs 1.2 lakh in exchange for facilitating the opening of these accounts.

"The accused further confessed to sharing OTPs, activating mobile banking services, and handing over control of the accounts to the main operators through WhatsApp and Telegram groups. These accounts were then allegedly used to route fraudulent transactions.

Police said mobile data analysis of the accused led to the recovery of crucial digital evidence, including details of SIM cards, bank accounts, passbooks, ATM cards, QR code scanners, Aadhaar cards, and PAN cards shared through messaging platforms.

A total of four accused have been arrested so far and sent to judicial custody.

A case has been registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 and Sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Further investigation is underway, the police said.