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The Mumbai Police Crime Branch on Sunday busted a forgery racket and arrested two agents involved in selling 37 fake documents.
The mastermind,Dayanand Bansi (48),is yet to be arrested. The police said Bansi,a Class XII dropout,is paralysed and operates the racket from Goregaon.
Police said the forged documents were sold to people seeking benefits under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) schemes or procuring bank loans.
Police said Bansi would receive orders from clients through his agents,and forge documents according to the clients requirements. While a forged annexure-II document for eligibility under SRA schemes would cost a client Rs 25,000,a forged SSC or HSC school certificate would cost Rs 5,000,police said.
The accused used to sell 37 different kinds of forged documents. These included school certificates,birth,death and marriage certificates,hall tickets,electricity bills,old stamp papers,pass books,press identity cards,domicile certificates,PAN cards,state government gazettes,etc. While,earlier,we have busted fake passport or fake PAN card rackets,this is a fake whatever-document-you-want racket, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy said.
We were amazed at the quality of the forgeries,and the painstaking attention to detail. Even holograms were duplicated by the accused. While we are yet to work out the entire ramifications of the racket,it may have very serious ramifications. They have been running this racket for five years and have admitted to forging hundreds of certificates. We are probing who the beneficiaries were, Roy said.
Bansi would never approach public,but receive orders through his agents. We have arrested two such agents – Pervez Makrani from Powai and Dharamjit Mishra from Vikhroli – and are likely to arrest more, Roy said.
Investigations have revealed that besides being used for SRA schemes,the forged documents prepared by the gang were also used to secure autorickshaw loans from several co-operative banks,even when no such vehicle was purchased. The two agents arrested have been remanded to police custody till March 21.
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