Shimla SP: Same date of birth on Aadhaar cards result of default auto-fill; rejects ‘propaganda’ & ‘false narrative’

by Ankita Mahalanobish

Against the backdrop of the recent communal flare-ups in Shimla, several social media users have claimed that 35 immigrant Muslim shop owners in Shimla were found with the same Aadhaar cards or, Aadhaar cards with the same date of birth. This, they suggested, was a clear indication of a conspiracy to change the demographic structure of Himachal Pradesh.

X (formerly Twitter) user Raushan Sinha (@MrSinha_), a Right-wing influencer who frequently puts out misinformation, shared two tweets with similar claims. In the first tweet, he shared a news clip from Zee News and wrote “Big news from Shimla : 35 MusIim vendors had the same Aadhar card details and all of them are outsiders. They came to HP recently in the name of doing business. First illegal Mosques & now this, it’s a big conspiracy to change the demography of Devbhoomi Himachal Pradesh…” (Archive)

This tweet garnered over 3.6 Lakh views and 10,000 retweets.

In the second one, he shared a video clip and wrote that it showed local people in Kangra (Himachal Pradesh) protesting against “illegal migration in Devbhoomi…” (Archive 2)

This tweet has around 2.1 Lakh views and 4,100 retweets.

Another Right-wing handle, MeghUpdates (@MeghUpdates) shared a clip of a bulletin from City News and claimed that “… 46 Muslims born on the same date 01/01 were found in Gumma Kotkhai, a small town in Shimla district…” This, he stated, was “part of a big conspiracy”. 

The tweet has around 5.28 Lakh views and 10,000 retweets.

Vishnu Vardhan Reddy (@SVishnuReddy), the BJP state vice-president of Andhra Pradesh, made the same claim from his official X handle. He is among several X users who have claimed the same.

 

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The Right-wing propaganda website, OpIndia, published a story with the headline stating, “46 Muslim vendors with dubious Aadhaar cards, illegal mosques, and more: Why Hindus of Himachal Pradesh are protesting”. The story cites a Dainik Jagran report which said, “हिमाचल प्रदेश के शिमला जिले के गुम्मा में बड़ी संख्या में अन्य राज्यों से आए मुस्लिम कारोबारियों के दस्तावेजों की जांच में चौंकाने वाले तथ्य सामने आए हैं। गुम्मा व्यापार मंडल के अंतर्गत कुछ दुकानों को मुस्लिम समुदाय के व्यापारियों ने किराये पर लिया है। व्यापार मंडल ने इन व्यापारियों के आधार कार्ड एकत्रित किए। कुल 86 कारोबारियों ने आधार कार्ड सौंपे, जिसमें से 46 की जन्मतिथि एक जैसी है।”

Fact Check

First, we noted that the clip of Zee News bulletin shared by Raushan Sinha and other users states, “There are 35 immigrant Muslim vendors who have the same date of birth in their Aadhaar cards and there are also 12 Hindu immigrant vendors whose Aadhaar cards have the same date of birth”. See below:

Next, we found another clip of a Zee News bulletin where some of the Aadhaar cards in question can be seen. The dates of birth are all mentioned as January 1.

Then we found that Shimla SP Sanjeev Kumar had put out a video statement in this regard. He said in Hindi, “For some time, misleading narratives have been carried out on social media. I want to state that legal actions can be taken against those who engage in this type of propaganda. Action has also been taken against some people… As far as the Aadhaar card issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is concerned, many people have expressed concerns about… the date of birth… We clarified with the concerned department and the biometrics of the people about whom doubts were raised were also investigated and it was found that there was nothing wrong with these cards.. its all propaganda… false claims are being made about dates of birth.. In our country, this Unique Identification concept in the form of the Aadhaar card system came into effect in 2010 and in the initial years, there were many people who were not sure about their dates of birth. In these cases, the data was auto-filled by default…it was auto-generated… There is no reason for the public to be misled by false narratives... this (same dates of birth) is because a default software process.. to summarize… this isn’t an issue as such, as per our investigation and verification, we did not find any fake Aadhaar cards…”

We checked the UIDAI website and found a press note dating back to October 27, 2017, clarifying on a controversy regarding similar dates of birth for almost all the residents in a village of Haridwar.

The press note states, “As per UIDAI policy, in order to allow every resident to enrol for Aadhaar, the date of birth is recorded in three manners. First is the verified date of birth in case resident provides supporting proof of date of birth. Second is the declared date of birth in case resident is able to declare his date of birth with no supporting document. Third, in cases of residents who are only able to give their age, 1st January of that year is taken as per the age given by the resident as date of birth by default for the purpose of enrolment.”

To sum up, the claim that Aadhaar cards of the Muslim vendors were fake because they had the same dates of birth is false. Firstly, according to reports, there are Hindu vendors as well whose Aadhaar cards have the same date of birth. Secondly, to have the same date of birth does not make the Aadhaar cards dubious or fake because when an individual is unsure of their birth date and can only state their age, the date of birth is auto-filled by the default UIDAI system as January 1 and the year is calculated according to the age mentioned. This was the case with the Aadhaar cards of the vendors in Shimla in question, the SP has clarified.

Ankita Mahalanobish is an intern at Alt News.

 

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