Hyderabad: A Bangladeshi national, Rashel Shaik alias Mohammed Rashel, was arrested last month by Pocharam police for illegally residing in India and possessing multiple forged Indian identity documents. Police seized several fake documents and mobile phones from his possession, including Aadhaar, voter ID and PAN cards.
This incident followed a major bust in November last year when Hyderabad police uncovered a racket operating out of Secunderabad that generated fake voter and Aadhaar cards. The gang charged just Rs 1,500 for each voter ID and also created forged Aadhaar cards, birth certificates, PAN cards and even passports. Forged signatures and rubber stamps of gazetted officers were used to lend credibility to the documents.
Since 2015, the network is believed to have produced over 15,000 fake voter IDs and around 10,000 Aadhaar cards. Six individuals were arrested, including government employees who processed fraudulent Aadhaar applications.
These cases underline the scale and persistence of sophisticated forgery rackets operating in Hyderabad, often with insider collusion and misuse of official seals and credentials. Despite the crackdowns, such networks continue to thrive in the city due to systemic gaps and weak enforcement.
In a related and troubling case, official inaction in response to a whistle-blower’s complaint has raised further concerns. A forged voter ID in the name of Sridhar Reddy Goguri was allegedly created and operated from an internet centre in Alwal, using the tampered date of birth documents. The whistle-blower submitted proof showing the accused altered his year of birth from 1977 to 1981 to obtain the voter ID, despite holding a passport that confirmed his birth year as 1977.
In response to an inquiry by the electoral registration officer (ERO), the regional passport officer issued a letter confirming the passport holder’s date of birth as March 27, 1977, and noted that he had made multiple foreign visits.
However, despite receiving this evidence, the deputy commissioner of Malkajgiri circle, who also serves as the ERO, only issued three notices to the accused. No action has been taken to cancel the forged ID cards or investigate the larger racket behind them. It is learnt that the accused runs an internet café and uses his own tampered documents to assure customers of the ease of obtaining fake IDs, drawing more clients into the illegal operation.
Deccan Chronicle is in possession of all supporting documents, including correspondence between the passport officer and the ERO, the three official notices and the original complaint filed by the whistle-blower. The case further reinforces Hyderabad’s notoriety as a hub for forged identity documents, exposing deep-rooted flaws in the verification and enforcement systems.
