Bangladeshi national among 2 arrested for fabricating fake documents in Gujarat
According to ATS, Mohammad Didarul Alam illegally entered India in 2012, got himself an Indian passport in 2017 and started the fake document business in 2018
The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Wednesday said it has arrested two persons including a Bangladeshi national on charges of fabricating fake documents to help illegal immigrants get Indian identity documents.
A statement issued by Gujarat ATS identified the accused as Mohammad Didarul Alam alias Rana Sarkar, a Bangladeshi national, and his Indian accomplice Shoaib Mohammad Qureshi. A third accused, Robiul Islam, is currently suspected to be in South Korea.
According to ATS, Mohammad Didarul Alam came to India from Bangladesh in 2012, was issued an Indian passport in 2017 on the basis of fabricated documents and started the fake document business in 2018.
According to documents seized by the ATS, the accused also used letterheads of local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress municipal corporators to get identity documents issued to their clients.
The statement said ATS officers raided Alam’s ‘VIP Mobile and Money Transfer’ shop at Narol, Ahmedabad on May 12. During the search, officers recovered multiple identification documents including Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, election ID cards, and a Bank of Baroda passbook.
In a subsequent raid at ‘Al Quraish Enterprise’ run by Qureshi, officers seized 22 physical copies of fake Aadhaar certificate templates. Digital forensic examination of computers and laptops revealed over 300 templates for fabricating Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, birth certificates, and other identification documents.
According to the ATS, they have helped at least 17 Bangladeshi nationals obtain Indian passports using counterfeit documents, the official said. Applications for another 9 Bangladeshi nationals were being processed when the operation was busted, the official added.
Alam has allegedly told his interrogators that he illegally entered India via West Bengal’s Dinhata area in 2012, and spent the next few years in Tamil Nadu, Bangaluru and Mumbai before settling down in Ahmedabad in 2015. By 2017, he managed to obtain an Indian passport and started his document fabrication business in 2018 from the premises in Narol.
His accomplice, Qureshi, a 33-year-old native of Nawalgarh, Rajasthan, had been operating ‘Al Quraish Enterprise’ since 2015, specialising in online applications for Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, and passports.
