CHINSURAH: A large number of residents of Baidyabati in Hooghly got a rather rude shock on Sunday afternoon when they received their Aadhar cards: their surnames had been suffixed with the choicest of Bengali invectives.

Take, for example, the case of Krishna Chandra Bhowmick, who lives on GT Road and is the owner of a small shop that sells electrical goods. “After the surname Bhowmick, the word Bokac**** has been mentioned, and instead of my father’s name, you will see the word ‘Dog’,” he told TOI. “My wife opened the sealed envelope after it arrived and was so shocked for a few minutes that she could not even call me. We will not take this lying down,” the hapless Bhowmick added.

What’s more, his gender has been mentioned as “transgender”, just as it has been with Chittaranjan Sarkar, another resident of Baidyabati, though his father’s name has been spared such an abomination. “No one has the right to hurl such insults at us. We will move court and file harassment and defamation cases,” Sarkar said.

About 12 people with similar complaints reached the office of Ajay Pratap Singh the municipality chairman, on Sunday to complain. The municipality had fixed the venue — Surendranath Balika Vidyalaya — where residents had to get themselves photographed and get their data collected.

“We are equally shocked. We have no responsibility in this mess. I have already seen the Aadhar cards and found the complaints to be true. I have informed the district magistrate, under whose order we had organized the venue,” Singh said.

“I really don’t know where things went wrong. I am shocked beyond words. I will find out what went wrong and at which stage,” promised district magistrate Manmit Nanda.