Sakleshpur identity documents, including voter ID cards, Aadhaar cards, PAN cards and driving licences, were found partially burnt near a lodge in Hassan district, prompting the administration to order a police investigation on October 15. Officials recovered 38 documents during an inspection, while a senior official separately said around 30 to 40 Aadhaar cards were also found.
Hassan deputy commissioner KS Latha Kumari directed assistant commissioner Hullumani Thimmanna to inspect the location after media reports drew attention to the discovery. Thimmanna visited the site with police personnel and other officials and ordered that an FIR be registered at the local police station.
According to the preliminary assessment shared by Thimmanna, 26 of the recovered documents were voter ID cards. These belonged to people from different districts, including Yadgir and Mandya. The material recovered also included Aadhaar cards, PAN cards and driving licences, all of which had been found in a partially burnt condition.
The official said the documents did not appear to be linked to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, or SIR. He said they may instead belong to migrant workers employed on coffee plantations in the Malnad region. Many such workers live in quarters located within plantation premises, according to the preliminary account cited by the official.
The discovery raises questions about how identity documents belonging to residents from multiple districts came to be discarded near a lodge and who was responsible for burning them. The administration has not established whether the documents were lost, discarded, collected by an intermediary or deliberately destroyed. The motive also remains unknown.
Thimmanna, who is also the electoral registration officer, said the circumstances could be determined only through a detailed investigation. Police have been instructed to trace the origin of the documents, establish how they reached the site and examine the circumstances in which they were burnt.
The reported numbers require reconciliation during the investigation. The administration’s inspection recorded 38 documents, including 26 voter ID cards, while the official account also referred to around 30 to 40 Aadhaar cards. The available report does not clarify whether the Aadhaar cards were included in the total of 38 or represented an additional recovery.
The assistant commissioner is expected to submit a report to the deputy commissioner after the police inquiry. The FIR and subsequent investigation are expected to establish the ownership and source of the documents and determine whether any offence was committed in their collection, possession or destruction.
