Nagpur: The growing misuse of fake Aadhaar cards in Nagpur’s red-light areas has exposed a deeply troubling method used by traffickers to exploit minors and push them into the sex trade. Recent rescue operations carried out by the Nagpur Police and the Social Security Branch (SSB) of the Crime Branch have revealed how traffickers are manipulating victims’ age and identity using forged Aadhaar documents — a tactic that is severely hampering rescue and rehabilitation efforts.
Earlier this month, police raided Hotel Paradise on Central Avenue and rescued a woman from Uzbekistan. Despite being a foreign national, she was found with an Aadhaar card — raising serious concerns about the ease with which traffickers can forge Indian identity documents.
Just days later, eight women — including five minors — were rescued from the notorious Ganga Jamuna area. All of them, reportedly trafficked from Rajasthan, were found in possession of Aadhaar cards that showed them as adults.
According to investigators, traffickers frequently use fake Aadhaar cards to misrepresent victims’ ages and places of origin. In some cases, minors are shown as adults to avoid legal protection under child trafficking laws. Victims have been traced back to West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and nearby districts like Chandrapur, Wardha, and Gondia.
Officials also revealed that traffickers administer steroids to minor girls to make them appear older, further complicating age determination during rescue operations.
A particularly disturbing case from 2021 continues to haunt law enforcement. A 7-year-old girl kidnapped from Madhya Pradesh was sold multiple times and pushed into prostitution by the time she was 10. By the time she was rescued from Ganga Jamuna at age 14, her physical maturity misled officers into believing she was much older — a deception enabled by false Aadhaar documentation.
Nagpur, once considered merely a transit route for trafficked individuals, has now emerged as a key hub for both grooming and exploitation. Many victims are first brought to Nagpur for conditioning and are then moved to major cities like Mumbai and Delhi or to trafficking hotspots in Rajasthan.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Mahak Swami, who led several crackdowns in Ganga Jamuna during her tenure as Zone 3 chief, confirmed the repeated use of forged Aadhaar cards in sex trafficking cases. “We’ve come across multiple cases where minors were falsely shown as adults using fake Aadhaar cards. The misuse of such a critical identification tool is extremely concerning,” she said.
Swami has urged hotel owners and landlords to verify Aadhaar credentials using the official ‘mAadhaar’ app or by scanning the QR codes printed on the cards to detect forgeries. “This simple step can go a long way in preventing such crimes,” she added.
