It just took ₹15,000 for a Bangladeshi national who had infiltrated Indian territory to pass for a genuine Indian citizen and work as a driver in Calcutta.

According to police, it costs anything between ₹500 and ₹15,000 to generate a genuine Aadhaar card against fake identity documents.

Azad Sheikh, 41, a Bangladeshi who had allegedly forged his identity documents from a small town in North 24-Parganas bordering Bangladesh, was arrested last week for alleged rash driving and injuring a police officer.

The arrest for an alleged traffic violation took the veil off something bigger.

“He has confessed that he gave ₹15,000 to Zafar Ali Sheikh, who not only gave him shelter at his home in North 24-Parganas’ Nazat, but also helped him obtain an Aadhaar card by giving him his own family’s identity,” said an officer probing the case.

Azad is not a lone stray example of someone forging documents to create an Indian identity.

Hundreds cross the border without valid documents, take shelter at a relative’s home or a temporary shelter provided by touts, and then obtain genuine Indian identity documents, like an Aadhaar card or a voter card, for a nominal charge. These documents are then used to generate other documents.

According to the Union government’s rules, an Aadhaar card is generated free of cost, while updating the details in the card costs between ₹50 and ₹100.

“Sometimes, even ₹500 gets a foreigner an Aadhaar card illegally,” a police officer said.

Senior officers who have served in the Bengal districts that share the international border with Bangladesh said such rackets thrived and were often difficult to track down because of their small scale of operation.

“There have been cases where a racket charged as little as ₹500 for an Aadhaar card for a foreigner without any verification and other documents. There are cases where persons entrusted with issuing Aadhaar cards at the Aadhaar enrolment centres have been arrested for outsourcing their jobs,” said an officer of the rank of deputy inspector general of police.

According to the rule, only the persons entrusted with collecting biometrics and issuing the Aadhaar cards can do this work. Their system can be accessed only through their retina scan.

“However, we have come across cases in South 24-Parganas where the person had outsourced his work to several others and asked them to issue Aadhaar cards against a commission on each Aadhaar card issued by them,” said the officer.

Once the Aadhaar card is issued, a foreigner uses it to apply for other identity documents such as the electoral photo identity card, driving licence and passport.

Recently, Kolkata Police nabbed a group of men who had been helping Bangladeshi nationals obtain fake identity documents that were used to apply for Indian passports.

At least 120 such Bangladeshi nationals had already obtained Indian passports and fled India using their “legal” passports. The police have chargesheeted 130 people, including some of the alleged racketeers.

Similarly, several other cases have emerged where passport applicants have submitted fake birth certificates to get a passport.

“This indicates there are many such rackets that are active in issuing birth certificates and other identity documents,” said an officer.

“If a person obtains a genuine passport without genuine documents, they can then
use the passport to get other identity cards,” the officer added.

Such incidents prompted Kolkata Police to formulate a new standard operating procedure for passport verification, which includes sending a passport applicant’s identity documents to the respective departments from where they were issued for an authenticity check.