Chattogram City Corporation: Red flags raised after 18 suspicious birth certificates issued

Unidentified miscreants issued 18 dubious birth registration certificates in Chattogram, after accessing the server when it was disabled for upgradation work.

The certificates were issued from user IDs and passwords of three ward councillors' offices under Chattogram City Corporation (CCC), but investigators said the incident took place on February 14 when issuing of birth registration was suspended for upgradation of the https://bdris.gov.bd portal.

After detecting the incidents, birth registration assistants of CCC ward-40 (North Patenga) Md Emdadul Haque, ward-41 (South Patenga) Ratan Kumar Chowdhury and ward-16 (Chawkbazar) Ahsanul Karim filed three cases on June 9 with respective Patenga and Chawkbazar police stations under the Digital Security Act.

The cases are now being investigated by Counter Terrorism (CT) Division of Chattogram Metropolitan Police (CMP).

According to the case statement filed by Md Ahsan Karim of Chawkbazar ward, issuing of birth registration certificates online had been suspended from February 8 to 28 due to software development. On March 1, a new user ID and password was given to him from Chattogram District Administration office. After entering with the new ID and password, he found seven new entries which were issued from his office dated February 14.

Among the seven, five used Cox's Bazar addresses while one was in Lohagra and one in Bayezid Bostami as permanent address. In the present addresses column, the seven mentioned city's Sirajuddowla Road and Joy Pahar-college Road area. However, the addresses were not specific.

Emadadul Haque in his case statement narrated a similar series of events, saying he found seven new birth certificates issued on February 14 -- all mentioning their permanent addresses in different areas in Teknaf and Cox's Bazar.

Ratan Kumar in his case statement said on March 1, he found four new entries issued from his ward dated February 14 after logging in with a new ID and password. In both the permanent and present address columns, the four use Teknaf and Cox's Bazar addresses.

After the incidents, the councillors informed the matter to Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) mayor Rezaul Karim and requested him to take steps in this regard.

This correspondent talked to CCC's Head of IT, Mohammed Iqbal Hasan, about the matter. He said "The software is being maintained and supervised by Local Government (LG) office of Chattogram District Administration... Our ward office workers just use the platform with user ID and password provided from the district administration office," he said.

According to CCC sources, to register a birth certificate, one needs their father and mother's birth certificates, NID, and other documents that prove that they are a resident of Bangladesh. After inputting the data in online, a printed copy has to be submitted at the concerned ward office along with required documents. Later, after verifying the data, birth certificates along with a serial number is issued from the website.

Contacted, Badiul Alam, Deputy Director (DD) of LG of Chattogram told The Daily Star, "The incident happed before I took charge of the department. I will look for the incident."

Deputy Commissioner of CT unit Hasan Md Showkat Ali told the newspaper, "We are investigating the cases, and are close to cracking it."