Aadhaar, India’s biometrics-based nationalidentity system, has definitely been a gamechanger in the delivery of our public policy benefits. Designed to provide legal identity to those who possessed no papers and to eliminate the multiple documents required for availing even minor government benefits, it has largely been an unqualified success. Fifteen years after the first 12-digit “unique ID” was issued under Aadhaar, nearly every Indian has enrolled, replacing bundles of photocopies with only a photograph or a fingerprint. It has eliminated corruption and fraud in the provision of benefits.

Opening a bank account or switching mobile operators now takes minutes instead of days earlier. But the darker side ~ the blatant misuse of Aadhaar ~ have started emerging recently, and the reports are really alarming. During a 2024 ED raid of 17 locations in Jharkhand and West Bengal targeting Bangladeshi infiltration, authorities discovered fake Aadhaar cards and machines for printing these.

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It is common knowledge that an ecosystem has always existed in West Bengal operated by private agents with the connivance of governments ever since the days of the Left Front to attract illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who formed a loyal vote bank for the ruling dispensation. While the state looks the other way, local agents create and provide fake Aadhaar cards which are then used to obtain ration cards and even passports to establish the Indian citizenship of infiltrators, many of them Rohingya refugees from Myanmar entering India from Bangladesh. It clearly points to the nexus between illegal infiltration, forged identity documents, and money laundering activities.

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Last September, after appre hending several Bangladeshis at the border, the BSF alerted UIDAI to deactivate the Aadhaar registrations of all suspected Bangladeshi nationals apprehended while entering or leaving the country. Now even bona-fide Indians from West Bengal and Assam face a problem in changing their Aadhaar cards outside their states. Besides West Bengal, Jharkhand’s Sahibganj has emerged as an infiltration hub. Investigators have identified aliens involved in land grabs within Jharkhand and also in trafficking girls.

ED probes show that the infiltration issue has now evolved into a thriving nexus of criminal activities, potentially involving local political and administrative systems. While the investigation unravels the nexus, political leaders are engaged in endless and meaningless blame games while ignoring the real security issues at stake. The illegal influx from across the border not only poses a serious security threat for the country, but is also drastically changing the demography of the........

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