Andhra police bust fake Aadhaar racket, arrest eight

The police in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district on Thursday busted an Aadhaar manipulation racket and arrested eight persons, including two belonging to Aadhaar centre who were involved in it.

Guntur (urban) superintendent of police R N Ammi Reddy said the accused had indulged in forgery of signatures of gazetted officers to prepare fake birth certificates of people and use them to obtain Aadhaar cards for securing benefits of government schemes.

Reddy said the accused had lured gullible women by promising them monetary benefits under government schemes like YSR Cheyutha and YSR pension schemes.

Under YSR Cheyutha scheme, financial support of ₹17,500 per year would be extended to women aged between 45 and 60 years for a period of four years so as to encourage them to become small entrepreneurs. Under YSR pension scheme, women above 60 years would get a pension of ₹2,250 per month.

“Taking advantage of the YSR Cheyutha scheme, the gang members lured women in the age group of 35 making them eligible for the scheme by manipulating their Aadhaar data, changing their age to above 45 years,” the SP said.

Similarly, the gang manipulated the Aadhaar cards of some other women in the age group of 50-59 years to show their age as above 60 years so that they would become eligible for the YSR Pension scheme.

Reddy said the gang created stamps in the name of some gazetted officers and issued fake birth certificates to these women. Later, the gang uploaded these certificates along with the Aadhaar data updating request forms so that they would get fresh Aadhaar cards.

“This way, the gang tampered with the data of at least 500 women using fake age and address proofs. The gang members collected between ₹3,000 and ₹5,000 from each woman,” the SP said.

The arrested – A Tirupathi Reddy, A Sai, Shaik Khaza, R Sai Seshu, A Sai Kumar, N Sivannarayana, G Venkata Nagi Reddy and P Durgaprasad – were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and sent in judicial remand for 14 days.