Just 4 days before the assembly elections in Assam, Congress leader Pawan Khera tried to create a controversy around CM Himanta Biswa Sarma's family by claiming that Riniki Bhuyan Sharma, wife of the Chief Minister, holds three foreign passports.
In a press conference held in Delhi, Khera claimed that she has passports from the UAE, Egypt and Antigua and Barbuda, and presented copies of the passports. However, both the CM and his wife have denied the claims, saying that they will file criminal and civil defamation cases against Khera for 'malicious, fabricated, and politically motivated lies'.
The CM and other leaders have already pointed out many discrepancies in the documents presented by Congress, which clearly show that they are doctored images. The Congress had presented a UAE Golden Visa card with the name Riniki BhuyEMian Sarma, calling it the passport of the CM's wife.
As explained in an earlier report, the document's ID number does not match her year of birth, and its machine-readable zone mentions the wrong nationality.
Now the original document has emerged, which clearly proves beyond doubt that the Congress party forged the document. It has now emerged that Congress presented a crudely doctored image lifted from a Pakistani national's lost Emirates ID card.
In a Facebook group named Pakistani in Ajman, a Pakistani man named Tipu Sultan posted on 28th March that he had lost two Emirates ID cards, a car document and an ATM card. He posted the photos of the Emirates ID card and the vehicle licence.
The Emirates ID card has the number 784-1996-5557498-8, the exact number seen on Riniki Bhuyan Sharma's 'UAE passport' shown by Congress. Notably, the man's date of birth is mentioned as 10th July 1996, and his year of birth matches with the second group of digits in the ID number.
Comparing both the images, it can be clearly seen that Congress altered the name from Ashraf Abdelkader Abdelsamad Hussien to Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, and changed the date of birth, issue and expiry dates. But they didn't change the ID number, perhaps unaware that the number contains the year of birth. The party also kept the nationality unchanged, keeping it Egypt.
Notably, the Facebook post didn't contain the back side of the ID card. Therefore, it can be presumed that Congress downloaded an image of the backside from a different source, and altered the text on it.
BJP leader and Assam Minister Pijush Hazarika posted the Facebook page link on X, saying, "So @Pawankhera stole the "Golden Card" number from this Facebook Group . What a shame!"
Resident Identity Card vs Golden Card
The document posted on Facebook says Resident Identity Card, while the document presented by Congress says Golden Card, therefore, Congress may claim that it was not forged, but a different genuine card with the same ID number. But that is not possible. In the UAE, the ID number is a unique 15-digit Emirates ID number issued to all residents.
This number is tied to the individual's biometric record in the central database of the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs & Port Security (ICP). It never changes for a person, even if the physical card expires or is renewed, the person switches visas or sponsors, or they upgrade to a Golden Visa.
Legitimate UAE Emirates IDs have strictly unique, non-reusable 15-digit numbers, they can't be the same even if the document types are different. Therefore, there is no doubt that Congress forged the document.
CM Himanta Biswa Sarma has already said that he and his wife will file both criminal and civil defamation cases within the next 48 hours against Pawan Khera. He said, "I categorically reject every allegation made by him. These are malicious, fabricated, and politically motivated lies aimed at misleading the people of Assam."
The CM said that once the truth is established in a court of law, Pawan Khera will face the consequences of his actions, and the law will take its due course.
Riniki Bhuyan responded to the allegations, saying that she "expected a spokesperson of a national party to exercise basic due diligence, rather than circulate poorly fabricated images of imaginary passports and documents." She added, "I will now be letting the law take over. Criminal charges are being initiated. We can continue this in court."