FIR against woman: Cop’s quick thinking unearths fake document verification site

According to an officer from the Nehru Nagar police station in Kurla (East), an FIR was registered against Ansari on Thursday for allegedly submitting a fake birth certificate from Uttar Pradesh. No arrests have been made yet.

Constable Raju Randive, from the Passport Verification Department at Nehru Nagar police station, had been reviewing Ansari’s documents, which were flagged for further inspection, and a digital verification via a QR code of the document issued by a hospital in Uttar Pradesh was conducted.

The QR code on the certificate was supposed to direct Randive to the Civil Registration System (CRS) portal, where document records are verified. However, he noticed that the website URL contained dots instead of a forward slash, despite the text appearing identical to the genuine CRS site.

Recalling an online training session that warned about fraudsters creating similar-looking websites, Randive suspected a scam. He confirmed his suspicion by contacting the Registrar (birth and death) in Uttar Pradesh, which confirmed that the birth certificate was fake.

Randive then informed his superiors, which led to the registration of an FIR against Ansari for attempting to obtain an Indian passport using forged documents.