By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Unique Identification Authority of India officials have discovered two methods in which persons without adequate documents have received or tried to receive Aadhaar cards by hoodwinking the authorities. While one method involved presenting forged gazetted letters as identity proof, the other helped people enrol using fake documents. In a separate case of vishing scam involving Aadhaar, a person was duped of `39,000 after the victim was asked to provide his Aadhaar number and ATM number to seed Aadhaar to his bank account.

Complaints have been filed in Sanjaynagar and Bellandur police stations in these three cases. While the first two cases were filed by Ashok Lenin, Deputy Director, UIDAI, Bengaluru, the third one was filed by T R Tarabai, a resident of Ambalipura.

In the first case registered at Sanjaynagar police station limits, a retired Resident Medical Officer Dr Mahantapaa Shabadi has been booked for forging his signature and seal in order to facilitate people to register for Aadhaar. According to sources, people who enrolled on the basis of these documents did not have adequate identity proofs and the enrolment was conducted based on the forged gazetted letter. The exact number of Aadhaar numbers issued so is yet to be ascertained.

In the complaint filed at Bellandur Police Station, Ashok Lenin has accused seven individuals of producing fake address proofs and identity documents to have Aadhaar numbers in different names. The accused have been identified as Robi, Riad Khan, Mohammad Khokhon, Ohidul, Nahid, Mohammad Kalm Khan and Zakeer Hussain.

Though the accused are yet to be nabbed, UIDAI sources said they were traced attempting to enrol using fake documents as they had enrolled for Aadhaar in the past.Cases were filed on December 11 and December 8 respectively.

Did Rohingya refugees enrol for Aadhaar ?

While rumours are rife that the seven person accused of attempting to enrol for Aadhaar were Rohingya refugees, police are yet to rule out the possibility. Speaking to Express, DCP (Whitefield) Abdul Ahad said it was possible that seven accused in Bellandur case were Rohingya refugees. “We have registered the complaint by UIDAI and have searched places they had produced as address proofs to enrol for Aadhaar. However, since we could not find them at the address, we have written back to UIDAI for more inputs to trace these people.” To a question, he said that Rohingya refugees or other refugees might be staying in the city as illegal immigrants. “We have been doing routine checks and monitoring at ground level to identify such people,” he added.