Sources in the police said that the cops accidentally hit upon the racket during some regular investigation in Lakhimpur district of Upper Assam, and found that the gang was involved in distributing forged citizenship certificates as well as forged copies of the National Register of Citizens, 1951 apart from similar papers relating to electoral rolls of the pre-1971 period.

The king-pin of the racket, Abdul Barik is stated to be a petition-writer in the Lakhimpur District Court, who himself is suspected to have distributed such forged papers to about 500 persons in the district during the past one year. The racket is believed to be part of a wider network covering Nagaon, Barpeta and Goalpara districts.

The police have also seized seals and printed letter-heads of electoral registration officers and even district magistrates of all the four districts -- Lakhimpur, Nagaon, Barpeta and Goalpara -- from the gang.

The gang has been charging between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,500 per such certificate on the basis of which the certificate-holders have been hoodwinking the authorities during preparation and revision of electoral rolls aimed at weeding out names of illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

Several illegal migrants pulled up by the Illegal Migrant Determination Tribunals and the Foreigners' Tribunals in different districts are also believed to have escaped from the clutches on the strength of such documents, the sources added.

A large number of such persons, on the strength of such forged documents are stated to have got themselves enrolled as Indian voters in different districts of the State over the years, while some are believed to have also acquired land and other properties.

Interestingly, it was only a few days ago that the branch recruitment office of the Army at Narengi had detected a large number of forged citizenship certificates which some applicants had submitted to it during a recruitment drive.

The Army had in fact approached the district authorities with a bunch of such documents, all permanent residence certificates (PRC), with signatures of district magistrates forged.

Some employees of the District Magistrate's Office here have been in the meantime placed under suspension for issuing PRCs without authority.