1,000 driving licences issued from A'bad, G'nagar on forged Army papers

AHMEDABAD: Based on inputs from the Pune branch of the directorate of military intelligence (MI), city crime branch has unearthed a scam where spurious Army quota driving licences were issued in the names of residents of Jammu and Kashmir, especially those from Baramulla and Anantnag.
About 1,000 such licences have been issued from Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad. City crime branch has arrested two RTO agents - Santosh Chauhan, 47, a resident of Gandhinagar, and Dhawal Ravat, 23, a resident of Chandkheda.
The two were apprehended in Chandkheda, based on a local intelligence input. Crime branch police inspector M S Trivedi, who registered the complaint on Friday, said the two have been arrested under Indian Penal Code sections dealing with cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and offences under the Information Technology Act.
Trivedi, the investigating officer in the case, said they had specific intelligence about driving licences being issued based on forged Army documents. Trivedi said they seized 284 driving licences, 97 defence driving books, nine rubber stamps, 37 no-objection certificates, nine service certificates, five confirmation letters, three laptops, 27 Speed Post stickers and an electronic signature stylus.
Trivedi said the duo would make fake defence driving books, confirmation letters, service certificates and canteen cards which would be submitted online to the RTO. Once the application was submitted, they used to skirt the process of personal verification of documents and signatures with the connivance of RTO officials. Once such a driving licence was issued, the two would pick it up and dispatch it to Jammu and Kashmir.
Trivedi said that after about a month, their contact in Jammu and Kashmir would inform them about a regiment stationed there and they would forge an NOC purportedly from the RTO in Ahmedabad or Gandhinagar, for transfer of the licence to a Jammu and Kashmir RTO.
The duo, according to Trivedi, got more than 1,000 such licences made. They would charge between Rs 6,000 and Rs 8,000 for each, collecting payments through digital platforms such as Google Pay.
According to crime branch officials, Chauhan had first met three J&K residents - Asfaq, Wasim and Nazir - and got such licences issued to them. They would later refer more people from Jammu and Kashmir to the duo in Gujarat.
Crime branch officials said that Chauhan and Rawat first worked together, with Rawat assisting Chauhan. For a couple of years, the duo had been working separately. Rawat was assisted by one Umar, while Chauhan was helped by Asfaq, Wasim and Nazir.