12 Rae Bareli villages under lens for ‘issuing’ fake certificates
Many of these allegedly fake documents were issued using the government’s Civil Registration System (CRS) portal.
Twelve villages of Salon block in Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli district are on the radar of security agencies after anti-terror officials said they suspected a major scam related to the issue of alleged fake birth and death certificates to people across different states over the past two years.
Many of these allegedly fake documents were issued using the government’s Civil Registration System (CRS) portal without filling the proper address and other details of beneficiaries, said Salon circle officer (CO) Vandana Singh as mentioned in the complaint given by village development officer, Vijay Singh Yadav.
The matter surfaced when the National Investigation Agency (NIA) red flagged certain certificates made on the addresses in some of these 12 villages after recovering certificates from some people earlier this year, said senior UP police officer, requesting anonymity, on Thursday.
The UP Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) is investigating the scam after tip-offs regarding the involvement of terror agencies.
On July 17, the Rae Bareli police registered a first information report under sections 318 (4) for cheating, 319 (2) for cheating by impersonation, 336 (3) for forging electronic record, 337 for forging a document, 338 for forgery of valuable security and 340 (2) for using forged document or electronic record as genuine, under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and arrested four people, including Salon village development officer Vijay Singh Yadav, whose login ID and password were allegedly used to create fake certificates.
On July 15, Yadav, approached the local police, seeking an FIR against a 24-year-old man named Mohammed Zeeshan Khan, and his father Rizwan Khan, 50, for allegedly misusing Yadav’s ID and password of the online birth registration portal, said Vandana Singh, commanding officer, Salon.
“In the complaint, Yadav mentioned that Zeeshan, his father and his aide issued 25,000 to 30,000 fake online birth and death certificates of unidentified people, who are not residents of these villages under his jurisdiction. Yadav mentioned that the beneficiaries of these fake certificates are from different states,” said another police official, requesting anonymity.
The CO said Yadav was allegedly pressurising cops to register the FIR so that he could become the complainant in the scam after getting summons from the NIA for issuance of fake certificates to suspicious people from his ID and password. The cops, instead of registering the FIR, informed district authorities as it was the matter of anomalies in government procedure, he added. Subsequently, the authorities ordered probe into the anomalies by Jitendra Singh, assistant development officer (panchayat), Salon.
“As per the 39-page report of initial inquiry conducted by the ADO, an FIR was lodged against Yadav, Zeeshan and his father Rizwan and one minor boy for issuance of 19,184 fake birth certificates on the addresses of four villages,” the CO said.
“All three adults, including Yadav, Zeeshan and his father Rizwan, were arrested on July 19 and sent to judicial custody while the minor was sent to a juvenile home.”
“Our team had visited Salon block and probed into the matter. We have asked district authorities to first cross check manually from all 12 villages how many fake birth and death certificates were issued since June 2022,” said an ATS official.
Chhote Lal, son and representative of Gadi Islampur village head, Kripala Devi, said, “Gadi Islampur has a population of 3,200 and the manual verification confirmed that over 2,000 fake certificates were issued.”