Faridabad man held for allegedly forging BJP MLA’s seal, digital signature to dupe families

Police said his cover blew when a few families who had got their documents verified by him reached the MLA’s office for additional verification.

Police arrested a 26-year-old man for allegedly duping people by verifying their documents using a forged seal, letterhead, and digital signature of BJP BJP MLA Satish Kumar Phagna in Faridabad, police said on Thursday.

Police have arrested the two men accused of the Faridabad assault, one from Uttar Pradesh and the other from Madhya Pradesh. (HT Photo by Subhash Sharma)

Police identified the suspect as Saurabh Kumar, 26, who lives in Parvatiya Colony and runs a common service centre (CSC) and a printing unit.

Police said Kumar charged ₹1,000 per family to verify documents and made ₹1 lakh through forgery.

How Kumar’s forgery was exposed

Police said his cover blew when a few families who had got their documents verified by him reached the MLA’s office in Dabua Colony for additional verification on Monday. The MLA represents the Faridabad NIT constituency.

Police said the MLA’s staff noticed the seals and signatures on the documents, like an Aadhaar card update, and grew suspicious. They verified the documents with their records and found that the MLA had neither met the applicants nor ever signed their documents.

They questioned the visitors, who said Kumar had charged them ₹1,000 to get their documents verified by the MLA.

Investigators said that the MLA’s office filed a complaint against the suspect at Saran police station. An FIR was registered under sections 204 (personating public servant), 318(4) (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 319 (cheating by personation), 336(3) (forgery for purpose of cheating), 338 (forgery of valuable security, will) and 340 (using forged document or electronic record as genuine) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita on Monday.

MLA’s seal, letterhead recovered

Yashpal Yadav, public relations officer of Faridabad police, said Kumar was arrested on Tuesday and that the MLA’s seal, forms, and letterhead were recovered from his possession.

“During interrogation, it was found that his wife’s Aadhaar was to be updated. He approached the MLA and got the documents verified via his office. After getting the verification done, he planned to create forged letterheads, seal and digital signature of the MLA to charge people on the pretext of getting their documents verified from his office,” the officer said.

Police probe 100 families

Investigators said that within two months, he had verified documents of at least 100 families. Police said they are probing whether other suspects were also involved and the how many documents were verified.