Ludhiana: Probe begins into fake Aadhaar card racket

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 3

After the Ludhiana police busted a fake Aadhaar card racket and arrested three accused, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) taking note of the development launched a separate probe in the matter.

An official of the UIDAI told The Tribune that “after learning from media reports that the police have detected an unauthorised Aadhaar enrolment centre registered under the general administration Assam running in Ludhiana, we are in touch with the police authorities and in the process of analysing the incident”.

The official said it seemed that the accused had forged the residential proof to get a new Aadhaar card and this sort of process signalled a fraud from the front end only and not from the department end. Let the department probe the matter.

On August 1, the police arrested Raj Kumar (48), a resident of New Subash Nagar mohalla, Tibba, Vinod Kumar Bhalla (42) of Tilak Nagar, Rahon road, and Raj Kumar Sunny (35) of Bajra colony. Accused Kuldeep Kumar was yet to be arrested in the case. The police had recovered three laptops, a fingerprint scanning machine, an eye scanning machine, two printers, 16 Aadhaar cards, five PAN cards, five voter cards, nine fingerprints, 36 certificates of Aadhaar enrolment form with stamp of MLA Ludhiana Harish Pushkar and a fake stamp of the MLA.

ADCP (Crime) Rupinder Kaur Bhatti, who busted the racket, said, Kuldeep was the key member of the gang and once he was arrested, all layers of the racket could be unfolded.