Cyber cafe owner, aide forge RCs & marksheets, held

Greater Noida: The owner of a cyber café in Bisrakh and an accomplice have been arrested for allegedly forging marksheets of students of classes X and XI, driving licences, registration certificates and Aadhaar cards.
Police said they had recovered 54 bogus Aadhaar cards, 51 fake driving licences, 14 forged marksheets of high school, 12 of intermediate and two of ITI courses, among other documents, from the cyber café that they searched on Friday.
DCP (central Noida) Harish Chander said the prime accused, Saadab Alam (in his thirties), had been running the cyber café along with Sahil (26) for the past one and half year. “Under its garb, they had been forging documents such as Aadhaar cards, driving licences, high school and intermediate marksheets and even registration certificates of the transport department,” he added.
Anita Chauhan, the SHO of Bisrakh, said that after receiving a tip-off, the police sent a decoy customer, who was promised a forged RC for Rs 7,000. She said that the accused would use a scanner to make copies of original documents and then make changes to them with software.
As the police held a news conference, a female lawyer representing the cyber café owner in court entered the premises and accused the cops of framing her client.
Aarti Gupta, the lawyer for Saadab, claimed that the accused had only been making “corrections” to the genuine marksheets. Gupta alleged that when Adil, the brother-in-law of Saadab, went to the Bisrakh police station, a constable allegedly demanded Rs 800 to allow him to meet the café owner.
Rajeev Rajput, who works at a jan suvidha kendra where Aadhaar cards are created, said documents like Aadhaar and PAN cards could be reprinted with corrections but not transport-related papers.
“To get a correction done in a transport-related document like an RC or a driving licence, one has to visit the transport department and get the details changed. However, if the phone number is linked with the Aadhaar card, its details can be corrected online. Details on PAN cards can be corrected too,” he added.
Saadab and Sahil have been booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of a valuable security, will or authority to make or transfer any valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged 1[document or electronic record]).
Lawyer Gupta said that she would apply for bail for her client in the Surajpur court on Monday. “The police wanted their custody but the court did not grant it. We will appeal for his bail on Monday,” she added.