Surat: The Special Operations Group (SOG) of Surat police has busted a fake learning licence racket in Kapodra and arrested four persons, officials said.Police seized 16 forged licences from the accused, allegedly created using a document-editing application. A case of cheating and forgery has been registered at Kapodra police station.Acting on a tip-off about illegal document preparation in Mansukhnagar area, SOG officials conducted a raid on Saturday evening and apprehended four accused — Prajesh Maniya (26), Dharmendra Shekhadiya (37), Praful Gajera (35) and Ravi Gangadiya (35).During the search, police recovered 13 fake licences from Maniya and one each from the other three. All licences carried different names, photographs and addresses.Police said the accused would pose as RTO agents and charge between Rs 7,000 and Rs 10,000 from customers for fake learning licences. Gajera and Gangadiya allegedly sourced clients and collected documents, which were then passed on to Shekhadiya.Shekhadiya would enter the details on the Parivahan Sewa portal to appear legitimate but would not complete the official process. Instead, the group prepared fake licences and handed them over to customers after collecting the money.Maniya was responsible for generating the final forged licences using a mobile application by editing a standard format and printing them.Police inspector M R Solanki said the accused repeatedly used the same QR codes on multiple licences, altering only names and photographs. “We have obtained three-day police custody of the accused and are probing the duration of the racket and the number of people cheated,” he said.Police have booked all four under charges of forgery of govt documents and cheating, among other offences.
