On Friday, a person (yet to be identified) reached a scrap shop in Thiruvananthapuram's Kattakkada taluk and sold a sack full of books and papers to the shop owner for Rs 500. The same night, when a few newspaper agents and other residents in the area reached the shop in Kerala to sell old papers and other scraps, they noticed a bunch of Aadhaar cards in the sack. On further inspection, they not only found 306 Aadhaar cards but some important letters from banks and other documents.
The shop owner alerted the police, who further searched the sack and found that it contained letters and documents from the post office within the Karakulam limits, but were never distributed or delivered to the person addressed on it.
"There were many letters, publications, Aadhaar cards and letters from banks. All were in closed covers and none of them was opened. As per our primary investigation, it was sold by a person whose wife is working in the post office. We have registered a case. However, we will know further details only after proper investigation and charge the accused accordingly,” said an officer from Kattakada station.
Most of Aadhaar cards were issued in 2015. There are also reports that the woman, whose husband supposedly sold the documents, was a temporary staff in the post office and she had kept the undistributed postal documents at her house.
It was not certain if the person sold the materials intentionally or unknowingly with other scraps.
A police team led by Kattakkada Station House Officer D Bijukumar started the inquiry and have taken statements from the staff at Karakulam post office.