North Kashmir Youth Sentenced to 5 Years Rigorous Imprisonment in Odisha

Chandikhole: In a major conviction in a high-profile forgery and impersonation case, the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Court in Chandikhole on Thursday sentenced a youth from North Kashmir, Sayed Ishaan Bukhari, to five years of rigorous imprisonment. He was found guilty of cheating, forgery, impersonation, and cyber fraud, and was also fined by the court.

The judgment came after a thorough trial involving 18 witnesses and scrutiny of 130 documentary exhibits, which established Bukhari’s role in a wide-ranging forgery racket.

Bukhari was arrested on December 15, 2023, during a coordinated raid by the Special Task Force (STF) with support from the Jajpur police at Neulpur in Dharmashala, Odisha. The arrest followed detailed surveillance and investigation into his activities across multiple states.

During the raid, officials recovered a large cache of incriminating materials, including forged medical degree certificates purportedly issued by prestigious institutions such as Cornell University (USA), the Canadian Health Services Institute, and Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore. The STF also seized blank signed documents, affidavits, bonds, multiple identity cards, ATM cards, blank cheques, Aadhaar cards, and visiting cards, pointing to a well-planned and extensive forgery network.

Bukhari was charge-sheeted under several stringent provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including Sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 465, 467, 468, 471 (forgery and use of forged documents), and 120B (criminal conspiracy). He was also booked under Sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000, for identity theft and cheating by impersonation using computer resources.

The prosecution termed the conviction a landmark step against professional forgery syndicates exploiting digital and offline platforms to manipulate official systems and defraud the public. [KNT]