ISLAMABAD: Eight candidates vying for the apex body of architects filed an objection petition alleging that Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP) elections have been “stolen through a cyber-attack”.

The petition has filed before the convener of election committee of PCATP by Jahangir Khan Sherpao, Azhar Mamoon Sualehi, Ahmad Mukhtar, Husnain Raza Khan, Mansoor Ahmad, Farman Ullah, Fahad Nizamani and Mahjabeen Bugti. The objectors have alleged that the elections have been stolen through hacking orchestrated by incumbent Chairperson M. Arif Changezi.

In their objection petition, the objectors have relied upon an official email which was sent by Oathsystems (Pvt.) Limited, the company entrusted with carrying out online elections, to the registrar, PCATP at 2:04pm on March 7, 2023.

In this email, the company has plainly admitted that some party orchestrated a hacking attack on the online voting system, and succeeded in manipulating the results.

The email states: “We witnessed an attack on our voting system at around 2am on 7th March, 2023.

“As a result of this attack, our voting result was manipulated ... During our rectification process, the voting system was unavailable to the members for around 3 hrs … Despite the fact that we carefully corrected every piece of data we cannot certify the result.”

After receiving this email, two members of PCATP’s election committee expressly rejected the election results. A third member Yusuf Awan, who was also the committee’s convener, wrote: “Report of Consultants IT be attached and shared with contestants and uploaded on the website.”

Two out of five members of the election committee approved the results.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2023

Opinion

Editorial

Deepening conflict
Updated 15 Jun, 2025

Deepening conflict

Some media reports say that the US had shipped hundreds of missiles to Israel before the attack on Iran.
Some strides
15 Jun, 2025

Some strides

THE PTI government in KP is not known for sound public service delivery in a province whose economy has been ...
Air India tragedy
15 Jun, 2025

Air India tragedy

THE black box of the ill-fated Air India flight AI171 has been recovered, and that should reveal in the coming days...
‘Declaration of war’
Updated 14 Jun, 2025

‘Declaration of war’

Israel's provocative behaviour has, once again, brought the Middle East to the precipice of a full-blown war.
A mixed bag
14 Jun, 2025

A mixed bag

SINDH’S Rs3.45tr budget for the next fiscal year seeks to combine populism with provincial tax reforms while also...
Water-starved city
14 Jun, 2025

Water-starved city

IT is an injustice that finds few parallels. Karachi, home to a burgeoning population of over 20m and the primary...