Guwahati, April 1: Several fake motor accident insurance claims have been detected in the state, including one in which a woman, who was murdered, was fraudulently shown to have died in a road accident.

Perusal of court records has revealed that at least eight fake insurance claims were detected in the Motor Accident Claims (MAC) tribunals during the past couple of years in Assam, where the claimants — allegedly in collusion with police — made fake accident claims to earn some easy money.

These cases, however, may only be the tip of the iceberg, as many such fake claims may still be pending in court.

“Such fake claims are bleeding insurance firms dry. There is a racket in Guwahati, which is lodging bogus claims before the MAC tribunals with the help of policemen on the basis of fabricated records,” an employee of a public sector insurance company said.

He said the racket was mostly active in Guwahati because Kamrup district had the highest number of pending MAC cases (11,184, as on June 2011) in the state.According to the court records, one such incident was MAC case number 298/08, in which a woman, Halima Begum, who was murdered by robbers, was shown to have died in a road accident.

According to case records, the officer-in-charge of Nanoi police outpost in Nagaon district filed an accident information report stating that Begum was killed in a motor accident caused by a bus bearing registration number AS-06/8296, which was driven by one Baharul Islam and the vehicle was insured with New India Assurance Limited.

During the trial, the court here found the claim to be suspicious and sought a report from the officer-in-charge of Nagaon police station. Nanoi outpost falls under the jurisdiction of Nagaon police station.

In his report, the officer-in-charge of Nagaon police station stated that the general diary entry number 76 of 2007 of case number 546/2007 was related to a robbery and not any motor accident.

Then it came to light that Begum was actually killed by robbers and had not died in a road mishap. The claim was subsequently dismissed.