Guwahati, March 30: Police seem to have stumbled on a thriving fake driving-licence racket with the arrest of two city bus drivers during a routine check last night.

Additional superintendent of police Bibekananda Das said the drivers, Srimanta Roy and Dilip Haloi, were arrested near the Gauhati University campus on charges of possessing fake driving licences.

The police have ruled out the involvement of the district transport office in the racket. Interrogators will question the owners of the two buses to ascertain if they knew that the drivers’ documents were fake ones.

“During verification, we discovered that the licences of the arrested drivers were not issued by the district transport office, but made at a computer centre. We are trying to identify the centre. This could be just the tip of an iceberg,” Das said.

District transport officer Kumud Gogoi said he was unaware of the arrests. “I have not yet heard from the police about the case, but if the drivers have been found with fake papers, that should be thoroughly probed.” A source at Jalukbari police station said both drivers were from Nalbari district. “They migrated to the city in the hope of finding jobs. They probably wanted driving licences within a short time and took the easy way out.”

According to a survey conducted by the Grahak Suraksha Sangstha (GSS) last year, the majority of private minibus drivers in the age group of 22 to 27 do not have valid documents.

The survey also revealed that bus owners do not bother to verify the documents before employing drivers. Most of these drivers come to the city from the outskirts and villages of different Lower Assam districts.

“Poor village youths learn to drive and, on finding employment, get licences made through touts,” an official said.

Additional superintendent of police (traffic) Arabinda Kalita said the majority of city bus drivers neither had the required experience nor adequate driving skills.

“The preponderance of the fake driving-licence racket can be attributed to the increase in the number of vehicles on the road. New vehicle owners often approach middlemen at the district transport office for licences and other documents to save time and avoid other official procedures. These middlemen do not always provide genuine documents,” he said.

Records available with the district transport office revealed that as many as 18,737 vehicles were registered in the city during 2003-04, as against 16,671 during 2002-03. Last year, 3,828 new cars and 1,079 heavy vehicles were registered.