2 held for preparing fake Aadhaar and voter ID cards

New Delhi: Two men were arrested for allegedly preparing fake Aadhaar and voter ID cards for a gang of cheats by using forged documents, police said on Tuesday.

Umesh Chander (29) and Ravi Sachdeva (36) were arrested from Mangolpuri and Burari respectively after several raids on Saturday, they said.

According to police, the arrest was made by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police in connection with a case registered by it on a complaint by a private bank, which alleged that the gang of cheats had procured several credit as well as debit cards from it using forged documents.

On November 4, eight members of the gang were arrested in the case by the EOW and hundreds of credit and debit cards, PAN cards, Aadhaar cards, cash and jewellery were also recovered from their possession.

Joint Commissioner of Police (EOW) Dr OP Mishra said during interrogation, the gang members revealed that Chander and Sachdeva prepared PAN cards, Aadhaar cards and voter IDs on the basis of forged documents, for them to obtain credit and debit cards from various banks.

Later, Chander and Sacheva were also arrested, he said.

The officer said Chander used to work as an operator in a firm authorised for processing data for preparation of Aadhaar cards.

He was well aware about the entire process of preparing Aadhaar cards.

Subsequently, he opened his own office in Mangolpuri and worked as an agent for firms which were authorised by Aadhaar authorities for preparing the cards.

"The gang of cheats had approached Chander for preparing different Aadhar cards by using photographs of the same person. Since biometrics such as fingerprints and Iris are necessary for preparing each Aadhaar card, Chander used biometrics, ridges of feet of the same person for preparing two different Aadhaar cards. He also used fingerprints and Iris of minors and others who did not have their biometric with Aadhaar authority," the senior officer said.

Chander and his accomplice Sachdeva later used these Aadhaar cards for preparing PAN cards and voter ID cards.

They charged Rs 5,000-10,000 for each of these fake PAN cards or Voter ID cards and Rs 25,000 for each Aadhaar card, Mishra said.

Police have seized a printer machine, two laptops, one Cogent IRIS Scanner Model and some papers from the office of the accused.