Daltonganj: Harihurganj police in Palamu district have launched an investigation into the alleged issuance of a forged permanent residential certificate by a customer service point (CSP) operator during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.Circle officer M K Sinha lodged an FIR on Oct 10 against CSP proprietor Abdul Salam, accusing him of generating a fake digital residential certificate in the name of Vidyawati Devi, a resident of Akouni village. The certificate was allegedly submitted during SIR-related proceedings.Police said the forgery came to light during scrutiny and verification at an SIR camp. Devi later filed a complaint with the circle officer, alleging fraud in the issuance of the certificate.Assistant electoral registration officer and BDO Paritosh Priyadarshi said the case was also examined by the SIR hearing team. “Obtaining a permanent residential certificate involves a prescribed verification process and generally takes 10 to 21 days. In this case, the complainant claimed she received the digital certificate within a day or two,” he said.Officers suspect Salam tampered with the digital signature of a govt officer and manipulated the certificate’s sanction number and date to make it appear genuine.Police have booked Salam under BNS provisions related to forgery, cheating, forged electronic records and using forged documents as genuine, besides Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act. Police said Salam is absconding.
