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Hard work is glory, everything else is theory,” reads the Twitter bio of Sonia Dhawan, PayTM boss Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s one-time secretary, who rose up to the position of vice-president while remaining secretary. Perhaps this sagacious rhyme wasn’t on her mind when, as the police were told, she tried to extort Rs 20 crore from Sharma.
Sonia Dhawan wasn’t alone in weaving a net around Vijay Shekhar Sharma — the net she is caught in herself. The police have arrested her husband, Rupak Jain, and a second PayTM employee, Devendra Kumar. They said another suspect, Rohit Chomal, who allegedly made the extortion call to Vijay Sharma’s brother, was still at large.
But what did they threaten Sharma with?
Dhawan, being a confidante of PayTM founder since the day he founded PayTM, was his secretary and assisted him in all meetings and decisions. She was privy to not only company information but a lot of his personal details. She had access to Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s laptop, mobile phone and his office computer.
She copied the data, some of them sensitive, and her husband arranged a man, Rohit Chomal, who would make the extortion call.
Ajay Shekhar Sharma, Vijay’s younger brother and a senior PayTM functionary, received the first call. Chomal demanded Rs 10 crore from him. When Ajay Shekhar Sharma told the caller he wouldn’t pay, he said, Chomal rang Vijay Shekhar Sharma several times — and eventually began asking for Rs 20 crore.
The Sharmas now knew their data was compromised and they didn’t take time to figure out who could have done it. Since some of it was personal in nature, Vijay’s personal assistant must have a role in it.
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Ajay Shekhar transferred Rs 2 lakh as token to Chomal on condition that he would at least reveal who got him the data. It’s not clear how the extortion caller sang so soon, but PayTM informed the police and named Sonia Dhawan, her husband Jain and Devendra Kumar.
Dhawan, Jain and Kumar were arrested Monday. The trio were booked under sections and provisions of the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code, including extortion, cheating and criminal breach of trust by a clerk or servant.
The two PayTM staffers “were at their desks” when they were arrested.
Both are said to be longtime employees. All that hard work in office — but now, if the charges are proved, no glory. Only infamy.
On Tuesday, PayTM said all the consumer data is protected with the highest and most impenetrable levels of security and hence users needn’t worry. They could not say the same about their owners’ data. Because the police will now reveal exactly what happened.
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