New Delhi, June 12 -- In a sweeping crackdown on age fraud, more than 500 wrestlers were disqualified from the U-17 National Open Ranking Tournament in Gonda after the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) introduced a stringent Aadhaar-based verification system that exposed widespread discrepancies in age and birth records.

The tournament, held from June 6 to 8 in Uttar Pradesh's Gonda district, saw around 1,200 wrestlers register across men's freestyle, Greco Roman and women's categories.

Apart from the mandatory birth certificates used for age verification, wrestlers were asked to produce Aadhaar cards linked to their mobile numbers and provide OTP authentication through the Aadhaar app, which maintains a record of changes made to the ...