Solan police crack VAHAN portal racket, six arrested
Probe reveals forged entries, fake user IDs & unauthorised vehicle data changes
In a major breakthrough, the Solan police have arrested six individuals who were acting as agents to facilitate unauthorised registrations on the VAHAN portal for pecuniary gains, in connivance with a clerk of the Regional Licensing Authority (RLA) Jhandutta, who remains at large.
Dr Poonam Bansal, an official of the RLA Solan, lodged a complaint with the Superintendent of Police (SP), Solan, on January 26, levelling serious allegations of systematic and grave irregularities in the registration of commercial vehicles bearing registration numbers HP-14D-4512, HP-14D-4582 and HP-14D-4586. These irregularities included the modification of laden weights and the transfer of ownership.
Besides, a slew of suspicious activities was detected on the VAHAN portal, allegedly carried out by registration clerk Jitendra Thakur through the misuse of multiple user IDs and mobile numbers.
Following the complaint, the police registered an FIR on January 26 under charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy, and constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by DSP Ashok Chauhan to probe the matter.
During the investigation, technical evidence revealed that the registration of the three vehicles had been carried out without adherence to statutory procedures. Mandatory inspection by a Motor Vehicle Inspector was not conducted and documentation was found to be incomplete. Furthermore, unauthorised alterations were systematically made to vehicle registration data, ownership details and other technical entries on the VAHAN portal.
Solan SP Sai Dattatreya Varma said, “In addition to the official user ID assigned to Jitendra Thakur, fraudulent user IDs under the names ‘Jitentha’ and ‘Drpoonam’ were created and used for verification and approval processes related to illegal vehicle registrations.”
He added that, “The accused misused the government’s online system to gain illicit financial benefits by circumventing established regulations. A rigorous analysis of technical evidence, including IP logs, OTP records and Call Detail Records (CDR), revealed that Gaurav Bhardwaj, a clerk posted at the RLA office in Jhandutta, was primarily involved in these criminal activities.”
The accused allegedly obtained administrative credentials of the RLA Solan office to gain unauthorised access to the VAHAN portal.
Further investigation revealed that Gaurav Bhardwaj had established an organised network of agents to execute these illegal activities. These agents, including Rajkumar alias Sunny, Vikas Singh alias Shalu and Anil, among others, extorted payments from vehicle owners. In return, they manipulated vehicle-related documents by increasing the laden weight, altering the owner serial number, removing hypothecation entries and carrying out registrations and ownership transfers without adhering to the prescribed statutory procedures.
Analysis of bank accounts revealed transactions amounting to crores of rupees in the accounts of Gaurav Bhardwaj, facilitated through various individuals and agents. These transactions corroborate the existence of an organised economic crime involving fraud and criminal conspiracy.
The police have arrested six individuals — Jitendra Thakur (41), a resident of Kasauli; Anil Kumar (42) of Jhandutta; Rajkumar (39) of Una; Jitender Kumar (34) of Sundernagar; Vikas Singh (27) of Nurpur; and Naresh Kumar (43) of Bilaspur. They were produced before a Solan court on Saturday for police remand.
The investigation is ongoing to further unravel the network and apprehend other individuals involved in this multi-crore organised crime.
