Nagaland police on Friday detained two persons for alleged fraudulent registration to avail of financial aid extended to citizens of the state stranded outside the state. They were detained following a complaint from the principal director, school education department, Shanavas C., a release said.

It said Veduzo Rokha, 23, of Thinyizu village under Phek district and currently residing at Kenuozou colony, Kohima and Pozü Daile, 33, of Phuba village under Senapati district of Manipur and residing at Themezie colony, Kohima had fraudulently registered in the Nagaland government web portal to avail the financial aid, which is meant only for the Nagas stranded outside the state. The accused were summoned to cyber crime police station in Kohima and released later on a personal bond.

The state government announced a special package under which citizens of Nagaland who are stranded outside the state can avail of financial assistance by registering in the iamstranded.nagaland-.gov.in web portal.

The police cautioned the public not to use fraudulent means to avail of any packages offered by the government during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis and said such acts will be liable for penal action.

The Nagaland PCC on Friday asked the state government to take cognizance of the alleged major security breach of data of citizens stranded outside the state because of the nationwide lockdown.

The PCC, in a release issued by its communications department, said the government must take action against this major security breach to restore some semblance of order, which has so far been missing in its approach towards handling the pandemic situation. “By resorting to sending the entire information, which includes Aadhaar and bank account details, the nodal officials concerned have committed a serious blunder,” the PCC said.

On April 20, Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio announced immediate cash assistance to the citizens of Nagaland stranded outside the state.

The stranded people were asked to provide personal data such as name, mobile number, present address, family contact number and address, Aadhaar number and IFSC code to avail of the financial assistance through the web portal.

However, the data was reportedly leaked and circulated through various messaging apps.

The PCC said the earlier excuse of overloaded website and now data security breach is the mirror of unpreparedness and inefficiency shown by the state government machinery so far. It said the clarification issued by the Nagaland principal director of school education, who is also the nodal officer for monitoring and coordination with other states, to a news portal is more about “shifting blame on those points of contacts such as union leaders in different parts of country tasked with verification process”.

“For verification, they could have simply sent only the details of name, address and phone number given by applicants to respective point of contacts,” it said.

The PCC also said the details sent in MS Excel format should have been in password-protected file known only to the point of contact. It urged the state government to expedite the process of disbursing financial assistance to the stranded people.