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NEW DELHI: A gang producing fake Aadhaar cards has been busted. Two men, who have been arrested, were former employees of a firm authorised to prepare Aadhaar cards at an SBI branch in Green Park.

After losing their job early this year, Vikash Kumar and Sushil Kumar managed to slip out with the required equipment and started the fake operation in north Delhi’s Shastri Nagar. They were caught on Thursday from home in Begampur, Rohini. Additional DCP (north) Vinit Kumar said about 400 unfinished cards, blank plastic cards and printers were seized from their office. A fake stamp of the district magistrate was also found.

“Following several complaints, a dummy was sent to their office to prepare a fake card for which he was charged Rs 500. A raid was conducted and the men were arrested,” said Kumar.

Vikash told cops that he started scanning Aadhaar and PAN cards at the shop he had been running in Shastri Nagar since 2013. He soon started making fake PAN cards. In 2016, both Vikash and Sushil joined a firm authorised to produce Aadhaar cards. However, the company lost the authorisation in 2017, and both lost their jobs.

In 2018, the men joined another Aadhaar firm as data entry operators and started working at the SBI Branch in Green Park. They were provided with a user ID and password for making Aadhaar cards on the bank premises. But after sometime, their user ID stopped working due to some technical glitches and they were asked to leave. They managed to took their equipment and started making fake cards from Shastri Nagar for Rs 400-500. They also claimed that they had got the user ID reactivated through some illegal channels.

Police are examining if they really managed to reactivate their IDs through some internal channels. The role of the private company is also under scanner.

