Death certificate fraud: Police arrest two PMC staff
The two accused, contract employees from the birth and death office, confessed to the fraud for financial benefit
The Raigad police have exposed a death certificate fraud in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and arrested two employees. The accused issued the death certificate of a Puneite to facilitate sale of his property at Shrivardhan in Raigad district two to three times.
The two accused, contract employees from the birth and death office, confessed to the fraud for financial benefit.
Ramkumar Agarwal from Camp filed a police complaint when he found that his one acre property at Shrivardhan in Konkan was sold to another person. Following the police inquiry, PMC gave a written reply that the office has not received an application for issuing a death certificate in the name of Agarwal and did not issue such a document. Further probe revealed that the fake death certificate was issued by two civic staff from Kondhwa ward office Swapnil Nigade and Shubham Pasalkar.
Police officials said that one Dr Amit Shah who signed the death certificate will be arrested soon.
Meanwhile, additional municipal commissioner Prithviraj BP has asked officials to carry out a detailed inquiry into the case.
Additional health officer Suryakant Devkar on Friday issued a circular to all regional medical officers who are incharge of birth, death and marriage registrations. “It is found that legal process is not followed in many cases. Lower level clerk and data operators who have access to system password carry out minor corrections in official documents even as they are not authorised to do it. Strict action will be taken regional medical officers if public complaints are found to be true,” he said.