Jaipur: Three accused, including two employees of the Department of Information Technology (DoIT), were arrested in Bhadra town of Hanumangarh district Monday in connection with a racket that allegedly generated Aadhaar cards using fake biometrics, police said.
With the latest arrests, the total number of accused held in the case has risen to seven.
Police have identified the accused as Dinesh Kumar (32), a programmer with the Department of Information Technology & Communication in Bhadra; Ramniwas Soni (35), an assistant programmer in the same department; and Ravi Sheela (25), a contractual employee of a private company attached to DoIT.
“The interrogation of other suspects led to these three accused,” said Narendra Singh Meena, Superintendent of Police, Hanumangarh.
Officials said the arrests stem from a joint operation carried out on April 17 with assistance from the Rajasthan ATS. During the operation, teams raided an illegal Aadhaar enrolment centre in Bhadra and arrested the main accused, Kuldeep Sharma (28), on the spot. Investigators said Sharma was using operator IDs of two individuals, Jaswant and Aamir Khan, to fraudulently generate Aadhaar cards.
Officials said the racket has serious national security implications, as such forged identity documents could be used for illegal activities. Sources said agencies were working on intelligence inputs indicating that fraudulent Aadhaar enrolments were being carried out in the state.
During the probe, police uncovered a methodically organised setup designed to bypass biometric safeguards. “Sharma forged signatures on enrolment receipts in the names of legitimate operators to conceal the fraud,” said an officer.
Hundreds of enrolment receipts were recovered from the site, indicating the scale of the racket.
Investigators said the role of insiders posted in the DoIT came under suspicion during the probe. “It was during the investigation that we informed the DoIT and UIDAI about the racket,” an official said, adding that further investigation is under way.
