Mangaluru: A team of officials led by Assistant Commissioner and Tahasildar raided a Public Service Centre on the road of the Taluk Office and sealed the shop on the evening of Monday December 5 following allegations of unauthorised distribution of voter ID cards.
It is alleged that the son of a resident of Manjalpadpu, whose voter ID card was lost, came to the Jana Seva Kendra and applied online to get back the voter ID. As they got suspicious about the identity card obtained from the Jana Seva Kendra, they went to the election branch of the Taluk Office and handed it over to the officials. When the officials checked, it came to light that the voter ID was given outside of the centre. Following this, a team of officials conducted a raid and investigation. Hundreds of blank cards with a smart card model have been discovered. The Assistant Commissioner informed about the incident and said that the case is being investigated.
We have not given anyone the power to issue voter ID cards at an external centre. However, it has come to light that it has been given at this centre. We have seized the cards and locked the centre, said Assistant Commissioner Girish Nandan and added an inquiry will be conducted as well as action will be taken. Since a specific website has been opened at our Jana Seva Kendra, our staff have logged into it, processed the application process and printed it. The full information of this has been shown to the authorities on an experimental basis. It’s not our fault. Is it possible to forge signatures of Government officials, election commission officials? We have not done anything wrong intentionally,” the centre’s owner said on the occasion.
Assistant Commissioner Girish Nandan, Tahasildar Nisargapriya, Deputy Tahasildar, Revenue Inspector, and others were in the operation. City Police Station SI Shrikant Rathod and staff provided the security.
