The Calcutta Municipal Corporation has lodged an FIR alleging that its website had been hacked to access a defunct web page that allowed Calcuttans to search for names in the 2010 NPR database, a civic official said on Monday.

The CMC’s chief manager (census) and controlling officer (information technology department) filed the complaint at the cyber police station in Lalbazar.

An image of the web page, which is no longer available to users, was found circulating on WhatsApp on Sunday, raising questions whether the civic body and the state government were updating the National Population Register.

The official ruled out such a possibility and said the government had issued a written order to the CMC to keep NPR on hold.

He and other officials said the image was circulated possibly to create panic among people and spread misinformation.

“We have lodged an FIR with the cyber police station at Lalbazar. We suspect someone hacked the CMC website and took an image of the web page,” the official said.

The image circulated on WhatsApp was of a page where Calcuttans could look for their names in the 2010 NPR. It was necessary to get Aadhaar cards, he said.

“We had removed the page link from our website. Common people cannot see this page without hacking into the website,” the official said.

An officer at Lalbazar said investigations were on into the CMC’s complaint.