India, May 6 -- As government authorities attempt to sanitise electoral rolls and plug gaps in documentation protocols, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Mumbai police has been constituted to probe a large-scale birth certificate fraud within the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The SIT will be headed by joint commissioner of police (crime branch), Lakhmi Gautam.

The fraud, which points to systemic vulnerabilities at the root of identity verification, centres on 87,347 birth certificates issued by the BMC's health department through an unauthorised SAP system, bypassing the central government's CRS portal. Given the implications of identity fraud, the SIT has been set up on the orders of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis,...