After Dr Mahathir Mohamad admitted that some 300,000 dubious names had been struck out of the Citizens' Declaration, activist Badrul Hisham Shaharin called for an exhaustive probe, involving the police forensics team.

The Sahabat Anak Muda Malaysia (SAMM) chief said the forensic team must obtain the list from computer programmer Azharuddin Othman, who made a statutory declaration claiming that he sold 900,000 names from his database for the declaration.

"They (the police) must then get the names of those on the declaration.

"Check both (the lists), if there is duplication, contact the person whose name is used and check if the person is aware that his or her name is on the declaration," said the suspended PKR member in a media statement.

Badrul, who is better known as Chegubard, said if the Citizens' Declaration secretariat refused to cooperate with the people, then it meant they are aware of the fraud and want to put a lid on the matter.

Yesterday, Mahathir admitted to the existence of cases of several different signatures belonging to one MyKad user in the declaration.

However, he claimed the dubious names were deliberately inserted in an attempt to derail the declaration, which sought royal intervention to remove Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

Mahathir also reiterated his allegation that many Malaysians wanted to ink the declaration, but the government had prevented them from doing so.

"They became afraid after the government decided to slash the BR1M financial aid and interfere with their business, among other measures," he claimed.

Meanwhile, Badrul alleged that the vetting was done in an attempt to "menutup bangkai gajah" or to cover up the bigger issue.

"What they removed from the declaration were repeated signatures and incomplete ones. What about those copied and entered from a different database?" he asked.

Following Azharuddin's disclosure, the Citizens' Declaration secretariat denied having dealings with him or Syarul Ema Rena Abu Samah (known online as Ratu Naga), whom the programmer claimed had sourced the data from him.

On May 30, the secretariat's secretary Kamaruddin Jaafar said that a total of 253,505 signatures were discarded because of duplication and incompleteness.

He added that audit of the signatures continued to be carried out to ensure their integrity and authenticity.

Badrul also highlighted the difference in the numbers stated by Mahathir and Kamaruddin.

He also pointed out that PAS lawmaker Mahfuz Omar had in the wake of Azharuddin’s disclosure, claimed that there were no false signatures.

Mahathir had recently announced that the declaration, launched two months ago, surpassed the one million mark.