MARGAO: The case of the identity theft of Benaulim couple — Agostinho and Maria Fernandes is becoming increasingly tangled. Sources from the Margao Municipal Council have claimed that the MMC was bound by a court order to issue the birth certificate to Renuka Tahsildar based on an application with important details missing.
Meanwhile, Margao Police have started investigations into the case, and on Thursday, visited the MMC as part of the same. The police have started searching for the original documents and have approached all departments for the same.
The police have also registered an FIR against Renuka and others for forging the unavailability certificate, among other thing. Offences have been registered under Sections 199, 419, 464, 465, 471, 468, read with 34 of IPC.
Meanwhile, Renuka has filed for anticipatory bail.
While speaking to a source at the MMC, who wished to keep his identity a secret, it was learnt that the MMC was approached with a court order to issue the birth certificate to Renuka in the name of Reeta Fernandes. The application, which Herald saw, was duly sealed and signed by the court.
Upon reading further, it was realised that the application that had been filed did not contain the name of the advocate who had helped Reeta draw the issuance order. It was even surprising to see that the paragraph, which generally in other applications mentions the name of the church or the person who holds the records of birth at Church, was missing.
This application has been now extracted by the MMC to understand how the entire operation, based on lies and false claims, stood at every level of the municipal departments.
“An application for the registration of birth is made at the MMC with the name of the applicant. When there is a case of non-availability of records, we send it for re-verification to the concerned church. In this case, the court order was supreme and we approved the application and issued the certificate,” said an MMC official.
The Fernandes couple, however, has told a story that will redefine kindness by one person to another. The fact that Renuka got a licence in 2012 in the name of Reeta Fernandes and hid it under the guise of kindness and small favours to Maria and Agostinho, wakes up to a dangerous fact of how trustworthy are tenants in today’s world.
