The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has dismantled an interstate forgery racket involved in creating fake Aadhaar cards and other Indian identity documents for individuals including Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. Eight members of the gang have been arrested in coordinated raids across multiple states.
The arrested individuals have been identified as Mohammad Naseem, Mohammad Shakib, Himanshu Rai, Salman Ansari, Gaurav Kumar Gautam, Rajeev Tiwari, Vishal Kumar, and Mrityunjay Gupta. Mohammad Naseem is alleged to be the kingpin of the operation.
According to authorities, the gang employed both electronic and manual methods to fabricate the documents and was active in at least nine states. The forged Aadhaar cards were used by illegal immigrants to obtain passports, residential proofs, and access to government welfare schemes. In many instances, the gang fabricated birth certificates, residence proofs, and affidavits to support their fraudulent activities. The beneficiaries of these fake Aadhaar cards included infiltrators, Rohingya refugees, Bangladeshi citizens, and others without valid Indian documents, who paid hefty sums to middlemen and racketeers for these services.
The ATS initiated the investigation based on months of intelligence gathering through human and technical surveillance, registering an FIR on August 20. Subsequently, search and raid operations were conducted in Azamgarh, Gorakhpur, Mau, Saharanpur, Auraiya (Uttar Pradesh), Murshidabad and Kolkata (West Bengal), Lakhisarai and Katihar (Bihar), and Delhi-NCR. During the operation, ATS teams seized a large cache of forged Indian documents and Aadhaar cards, along with the devices used for forgery. These included high-tech electronic devices, fingerprint scanners, laptops, and multiple mobile phones used for VPN operations.
ATS officials believe that the gang members learned the "tricks of the trade" while working at authorized public service centers (Jan Seva Kendras), where they gained knowledge of the Aadhaar card creation process. They allegedly misused these centers, which are registered for Aadhaar enrollment, to illegally generate or modify Aadhaar cards. Investigators revealed that operators used VPN networks and remote access systems to bypass security checks and make fraudulent changes in official records. They obtained authorized user IDs, passwords, thumb impressions, and eye scans to carry out their illicit activities.
The ATS has sought police custody of the accused for further interrogation to identify more operatives linked to the racket. Officials believe that several more people, including document forgers, data operators, and middlemen, are part of the wider network. The investigation is ongoing, with authorities working to uncover the full extent of the network's operations and cross-border implications.
