Impersonation in Railway exam using thumb skin: Vadodara Police to expand probe to Bihar

“The accused have told us that they met at a common place during preparations for the exam. We have to ascertain who introduced them and if this was a modus operandi suggested by the middlemen, who we suspect are involved. We are preparing to send a team to Bihar for further investigation in the matter as it is not clear if Manish Kumar took the help of someone to slice his thumb. So far, he has been saying that he did it on his own on August 19 and immediately boarded for Vadodara. The second accused, Gupta, who posed as the dummy is also maintaining that he impersonated for the first time,” Tiwari told The Indian Express.

The police have sent the piece of the skin—which had come off Gupta’s thumb when the invigilator used a sanitiser to re-attempt the second unsuccessful fingerprint verification—for a DNA match, Tiwari added. Stating that the police do not intend to seek further custody of the accused, Tiwari said, “For the purpose of the evidence, we need to have reports to match the sample of the skin with the main accused. We have sent the piece of skin as well as the blood samples of both the accused to the FSL… We do not plan to seek further custody of the accused in court tomorrow when we produce them at the end of the three-day remand. We have clues to take the investigation further to Bihar and that will be the next step.”

On Wednesday, the court granted the Laxmipura police three days of custody of the accused—both natives of Beladih village in Munger taluka of Bihar—to investigate the FIR lodged by the Operation Executive of TCS which was conducting the exam for 645 candidates.

According to the FIR, Gupta had gained entry by scanning the barcode in the admit card issued in the name of Manish Kumar. He also cleared the biometric verification of the Aadhaar card using the left thumb impression with the help of the layer of Kumar’s skin attached to his thumb. However, in the second round of biometric verification, Manish Kumar’s thumb impression could not be recorded after two attempts. This is when invigilator Akhilendrasinh became suspicious and used a sanitiser to clean the thumb. The skin came undone and the exam officials called the police control room.

The Laxmipura police have booked the accused under Indian Penal Code Sections for punishment for cheating by personation (419), making of a false document in the name of a fictitious person, intending it to be believed that the document was made by a real person (464), forgery (465), forgery for purpose of cheating (468), and criminal conspiracy [120(B)] as well as the Information Technology Act, 2000.