Amidst the ongoing crackdown against cybercrime as per directions of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, Punjab Police’s State Cyber Crime Division has arrested the prime accused running a fake website impersonating the official website of the Punjab Government’s Mining Department to generate counterfeit receipts and forms, facilitating the movement of vehicles involved in illegal mining, said Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav here on Monday.
The accused, identified as Gaurav Kumar of Kharar in SAS Nagar, has created the exact replica of the original official website of Mining Department ‘minesgeologypunjab.gov.in', thereby impersonating it as, ‘minesgeologypunjab.in'.
The accused had created a fake website in November, 2024, which remained operational till January, 2025. DGP Gaurav Yadav said that the fake slips even consisted of a Bar/QR Scanner code on the lines of official mining website which helped the vehicles in passing all security checks to curb illegal mining.
Initial investigation revealed that the accused, in connivance with a person from Ferozepur, generated over 2000 fake mining receipts causing an estimated loss of around Rs 40-50 Lakhs to the Punjab Government exchequer, he said.
The DGP said that the website backup, along with data containing details of fake receipts, images of vehicles, mining material sources and destinations, and the computer systems used in the offence, has been recovered.
Further investigation is underway to uncover the full nexus, he added. Sharing more details, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Cybercrime Division V Neeraja the investigation began after a complaint was filed by the Chief Engineer of the Mining Department, alleging that the official website had been compromised and a fake website was being used to facilitate illegal mining activities.
During the investigation, it was revealed that the fake website was registered and hosted on GoDaddy, a US-based domain provider, she said, while adding that the Cybercrime officials, in coordination with GoDaddy’s legal authorities and various Internet Service Providers, traced the website’s creation to accused Gaurav Kumar.
She said that police teams led by DSP Cybercrime Simranjit Singh further obtained the information regarding IP Addresses and mobile numbers of the accused and conducted raids at different places leading to the arrest of accused Gaurav Kumar.
Police teams have also identified the other accused person involved in this scam and raids are being conducted to nab him, she added. ADGP V Neeraja further revealed that the information from the recovered records revealed that most of the fake mining forms generated belong to Navyug firm based in Ludhiana.
In this regard, a case FIR no. 2 dated 11/2/2025 has been registered under sections 318(4), 336(3), and 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and sections 66C, 66D, and 66 of the IT Act at Police Station State Cyber Crime, Punjab.