Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Five birth certificates submitted by people who obtained passport verification using the address of a Buddha Vihar in Anna Nagar in Govindpura have been found to be fake. Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) found no records of the certificates during verification and filed an FIR, police said on Friday.
After a nearly two-year investigation, Govindpura police have registered a case against all five individuals for allegedly preparing and using forged documents. During the investigation, police verified the birth certificates of Kishan Saha, Lavlu Chowdhury, Arnav Singh, Vijay Atulkar and Rohit Singh with the BMC.
In its response on September 17, the BMC confirmed that no records of the five certificates were available. Govindpura police subsequently registered a case under Sections 318(4), 338 and 340 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 12 of the Passport Act. Police are now examining documents submitted by other applicants who used Vihar address for passport verification.
40 passports verified from same address
According to police, passport verification for 40 applicants was conducted from Buddha Vihar address during 2023, 2024 and 2025. Four applicants, Shipon Roy, Rupon Roy, Durjoy Chowdhury and Bijay Talukdar, had their passport verification completed on September 12, 2023.
The District Special Branch later investigated their citizenship. As their documents failed to establish citizenship, a letter was sent to the passport authorities on January 15, 2024, recommending cancellation of their passports.
Police seek details of applicants
Police station in-charge Awadhesh Singh Tomar said this was the first FIR registered in the matter amid ongoing action by Special Task Force (STF). Tomar further said that police sought information on the applicants' previous and permanent addresses recorded in their Aadhaar documents from the Unique Identification Authority of India on June 29, 2025.
The latter declined to provide the information citing privacy and confidentiality provisions. Police have since written again.
Of the 40 passport applications, records of 26 were obtained from Bhopal office while details of 13 were sought from Guwahati office. One application could not be traced due to an incorrect application number, Tomar said.
