Doctor arrested for helping 3 Pakistanis get Aadhaar cards

BENGALURU: The arrest of a doctor for allegedly signing papers on the basis of which three Pakistani nationals got Aadhaar has triggered fresh concerns over the authentication process for the 12-digit unique ID number.

Police arrested Dr C Nagalakshmamma, a gazetted officer, who works at a government hospital in Bengaluru, on Monday. A day later, they nabbed Ravikumar, a group D employee at the same hospital.

“Prima facie it looks like Dr Nagalakshmamma blindly signed on the paper given to her by Ravikumar,” deputy commissioner of police (Crime), HD Ananda Kumar, said. “While there does not seem to be any conspiracy, a crime was committed and we have booked both.”

Bengaluru police commissioner, Praveen Sood, said the procedure of authentication needed to be looked at afresh. “Even before Aadhaar, gazetted officers were caught authenticating documents without any verification. Hence, this definitely needs to be looked at.”

Delhi-based lawyer Gautam Bhatia said in the absence of verification at the time of authentication the system was prone to such lapses. “The Unique Identification Authority of India says biometric authentication is foolproof. However, a lack of verification of documents submitted at the time of enrolment could lead to such mistakes.”

Bhatia added, “Once a person is enrolled in the system, there is no way to identify the fraud because the person would be authenticated.”

Officials at the regional office of the UIDAI could not be contacted. Police have sought information regarding the number of people who have enrolled based on documents authenticated by gazetted officers.

Police arrested the three Pakistani nationals along with an Indian on May 24. They had lived in Bengaluru for two years. “The three Pakistani nationals did not have valid visa and were residing here illegally,” Sood had said after their arrest.