Fake birth, death registrations of children to meet targets

Roman Ahmed and Mosammat Mousumi Islam are husband and wife. We wandered around for quite some time searching for their home.

Roman’s father’s name is Golap Mia and his mother’s name is Khadija Begum. The address is Sadekpur village of Sadekpur Union in Brahmanbaria Sadar upazila. This is listed as Roman’s permanent address in the Union Parishad (UP) birth and death registration records. According to those records, Roman “recently died due to diabetes.”

Despite searching extensively, no one in Sadekpur village could point us to Roman’s house. As a last attempt, we checked the birth registration details by entering Roman’s birth registration number and date of birth into the “Office of the Registrar General, Birth and Death Registration” verification system (https://everify.bdris.gov.bd/). There we found the actual address, which turned out to be Birampur village in the same union. When we went to Birampur village, we easily found Roman’s family. Knocking on the door of a concrete house, Roman’s mother Khadija Begum came out. This happened on 11 November.

Before explaining why we were looking for Roman Ahmed, some background about him is necessary. According to union parisad data, Roman is 19 years old and Mousumi is 18. This couple is shown as having 19 children. Their 19th child, Sachchu Zarif, was born on 10 October this year.

Surprised by the number of children? Then read on patiently.

Union parishad records show that Sachchu Zarif died 40 days after birth, on 9 November. On the same day as his birth (10 October 2025), the 13th child, Mitu Moni, and the 18th child, Mili Moni, were also born. Mitu died on 9 November and Mili died on 30 October.

All three children are recorded as having died of “cardiogenic shock (heart disease).” The father, Roman, is recorded as having died the day before the birth of the three children. The mother, Mousumi, is recorded as having died on the day of birth, 10 October. One child was born after her death.

An 18-year-old mother with 19 children, a child born 20 days after the mother’s death—hearing all this may make you dizzy. But note that all this information comes from Bangladesh’s official government database, and it is entirely fake. The database belongs to the “Office of the Registrar General, Birth and Death Registration.”

Union parishads, which are responsible for registering births and deaths, are arbitrarily recording children’s births and then showing their deaths within a few days. This happens because union parishads face pressure to meet birth and death registration targets. Moreover, meeting targets brings recognition. As a result, fraud is being committed. The case of the “Roman and Mousumi couple” is proof of this.

According to the rules, after applying online for birth or death registration, applicants come to the UP administrative officer or UP secretary to obtain the certificate. The UP secretary acts as the assistant registrar, while the UP chairman is the registrar. Using the ID and password provided by the Office of the Registrar General, the UP secretary logs into the system, verifies the applicant’s information, and collects the online registration fee (paid by the applicant). Then the registrar or chairman completes the registration using his own ID and password. After the chairman gives approval, the UP secretary prints the birth or death certificate from his ID and hands it to the applicant.

After Roman obtained his certificate from the UP, his birth registration number and date of birth were used without his knowledge by the UP office to create a fictitious couple, and fake birth and death registrations were made for that couple’s children. Only the village name in Roman’s address was changed.

When we reached Roman’s house at 1:30 pm on 11 November, his mother Khadija Begum was cooking lunch. Recently, there had been clashes, attacks, and arson incidents between two groups in the village. Fearing that they might be blamed in those incidents, she became frightened upon seeing us.

After introducing ourselves and talking, we learned that her husband Golap Mia runs a bakery business in Cumilla. They have two sons and one daughter. Roman is the second child. The elder son Rubel works abroad in Saudi Arabia. Roman works at a shop in Dhaka. The daughter is married. Neither of her two sons is married.

In other words, the name Mousumi mentioned as Roman’s wife is fake. Roman’s birth registration was done at the UP office. Using that birth registration to create further fake registrations was unknown to the family. Why Roman’s name was used as the “father of the children” also needs explanation. For children born after 2013, birth registration requires the birth registrations of both parents. Therefore, to create a fake child’s birth registration, information from a real person’s certificate is needed. Using real data from individuals stored in the UP birth and death registration database, multiple fake registrations were created in this way.

Fake registration information was found in Sadekpur and Budhal unions of Brahmanbaria Sadar upazila, Kuti union of Kasba upazila, and Charchar Tala union of Ashuganj upazila. Fake certificates are more common in the case of children. Many registrations exist for children who were never actually born. On paper, their births and deaths were recorded. One major reason for targeting children is that registering births and deaths within 45 days is free of charge. After that, fees apply (Tk 25 up to five years). Registrars showed the children’s births and then their deaths within 45 days, so they did not have to spend any money out of pocket for fake registrations. UP secretaries admitted this to Prothom Alo, saying that such fraud occurs to varying degrees across the country, not only in Brahmanbaria.

After receiving allegations of birth and death registration fraud, Brahmanbaria was selected as a district for investigation. As recently as 7–8 months ago, the district ranked 56th in meeting birth and death registration targets. In October this year, it jumped 50 places to 5th. With the cooperation of responsible sources, Prothom Alo collected 509 records—258 birth registrations and 251 death registrations—from five unions in three upazilas of Brahmanbaria over a long period from the registration system. Prothom Alo reporters also received training on how to identify fake registrations. Using those registrations, information was verified on the ground in five unions between 10 and 18 November. Evidence of serious fraud was found in four of the five unions.

The inclusion of fake names raises questions about the integrity of the database of the Office of the Registrar General, Birth and Death Registration, as well as official government statistics.

Md Nazrul Islam, country coordinator of the global public health organization Vital Strategies, told Prothom Alo that the inclusion of fake names means the “system” is being contaminated, and inflated population data could create disorder in government planning. He said that if fake names and information can be entered, Rohingya names could also be included, and criminals could exploit fake registrations.

Birth certificates are required in 19 cases, including admission to educational institutions, obtaining a national identity card, and applying for a passport. Death registration is necessary to protect various rights, including inheritance and government allowances. A birth certificate is required to register a death.

According to Section 8 of the Birth and Death Registration Act 2004, parents, guardians, or designated persons are obliged to provide information to the registrar within 45 days of a birth or death. However, families often show little interest in birth and death registration unless necessary.

Under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), target 16 prioritises providing legal identity for all, including birth registration. To achieve this, under the UNESCAP-declared “Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Decade,” the Government of Bangladesh has committed to ensuring 100 per cent birth registration within one year of birth and 80 per cent death registration by 2030. According to UNESCAP data, the rate of birth registration within one year in Bangladesh is only 50 per cent, and the death registration rate is 47 per cent.

By reviewing death registration lists for September, October, and the first 11 days of November at Sadekpur UP in Brahmanbaria Sadar upazila, at least 51 fake names were found. Most child deaths were recorded as caused by “cardiogenic shock.” In some cases, causes such as “unattended death” and “brought dead” were recorded. Names on the list included Bel Pori, Pani Pori, Payel Pori, Mohammad Mukesh Ambani, and Sada Manik.

In October, 61 death registrations were recorded in Sadekpur. Of these, 54 were registered within 45 days of death. At least 33 of those 54 names were confirmed to be fake. Before registering a death, a birth registration must also be created, so those names also appeared as fake in the birth registration list.

At Kuti Union Parishad in Kasba upazila, it was found that multiple children’s birth and death registrations were created using the same holding tax, the same receipt, and the same vaccination card. Most registrations had no genuine documents attached. In a few cases, mobile phone numbers and full addresses were provided. Examples of “twin births” and “twin deaths” were abundant.

A death registration was made for a man named Jasimuddin on 22 October. His father was listed as deceased Rafizuddin and his mother as deceased Shahida Khatun. According to the application, Jasimuddin was born in 1976 and died in a road accident in 2003. Using Jasimuddin’s birth registration number, birth registrations were created for two children named Aisha and Maisha, shown as his 4th and 5th children, “born” on 12 October this year. One phone number was used in the registrations.

When that number was called, a woman named Amena from Kuti village answered. She said it belonged to her elderly mother-in-law Hosne Ara. She had not heard of any twins named Aisha and Maisha being born in the village, nor did she know any couple named “Jasimuddin-Roksana.”

Although registration within 45 days is free, Kuti Union Parishad allows free registration within one year of birth or death from a personal fund of the UP chairman. Taking advantage of this, fake registrations were also made for children older than 45 days.

For example, the 5th child of Akhtar Hossain and Ruby Akhtar was born on 18 May, and their 6th child was born on 15 August. These two “almost twin” children, born three months apart, both died on 9 September.

In October alone, Prothom Alo found records of the deaths of 12 “pairs of twin children”—that is, 24 children aged between 3 and 20 days—in Kuti. Some were listed as the 3rd child, others as the 7th child.

In Kuti Union, 120 birth registrations and 40 death registrations were recorded in October. The monthly target was at least 108 birth registrations and 30 death registrations. This means achievement rates of 111 per cent and 131 per cent respectively.

Prothom Alo verified 70 death registrations and 14 birth registrations from September, October, and November in Kuti. Among these, 40 death records were of newborns (up to 28 days old). In October alone, 12 newborn death registrations were found. To verify whether so many deaths actually occurred in the union, it was found that even in the previous 10 months from January to October, there had not been this many newborn deaths.

Despite the large number of fake death registrations, Kuti UP secretary Kazi Tajuddin Ahmed denied this, saying, “All the registered deaths actually occurred.”

However, Kasba Upazila Health and Family Planning Officer Md Asaduzzaman Bhuiya told Prothom Alo that no newborn deaths occurred across the upazila in October. Whether births or deaths occur in hospitals or at home, his office keeps records.

At Charchar Tala, Mst Labanya Akter has been shown in birth and death registration records as the wife of Md Shipon. The death registration of the couple’s third child, Tasnim Sarkar (9 days old), is shown as dated 29 October. By checking the birth registration number, it has been confirmed that the same Labanya Akter was shown as the wife of a man named Kabir Mia, with the birth registration of a fourth child (20 days old) recorded on 30 October. Another woman named Maksuda Begum is also shown as the wife of the same Kabir Mia. The registration of the Kabir–Maksuda couple’s third child (8 days old) is shown as dated 2 November.

A woman named Mim has been shown once as the wife of Md Nayan and again as the wife of another man named Azad Sarkar. The birth of the Nayan–Mim couple’s third child, Umme Jini, is shown as 10 October. Again, the birth of another third child of the Azad–Mim couple is shown as 13 October.

When asked about the matter, Charchar Tala union parishad secretary Russell Mahmud said, “I’ve heard you’ve looked into this in many places. You can understand the issue yourself.”

He added that under targets set by the Ministry of Health for vaccinating children, his area has been given almost double that target in terms of birth registrations.

On 15, 16, and 18 November, children were searched for based on death registrations in Budhal union of Brahmanbaria sadar upazila. After much searching, an address was found at the house of Mohammad Helal in Sirajnagar village of Jangalisar. Helal’s family lives on the ground floor of a concrete house surrounded by boundary walls. Helal was not found at home, but his wife Nazma Begum was spoken to. According to the birth and death registration database, the couple’s fourth child, Md Shihab, died at the age of three days on 2 September.

Nazma showed Prothom Alo her own and her husband’s birth certificates. She said they have three children aged 9, 5, and 3 years. They have no child named Shihab, and none of their children has died.

Using the birth registration numbers of the couple Matin and Salma Akter, the database contained information showing a child named Ripon Ahmed as their fourth child. The child, born on 17 September, was shown to have died four days later. Salma Akter said, “I have three children. I have no child named Ripon Ahmed, and none of my children has died. A few days ago, someone came to our house from the union parishad office with a death certificate and told me to keep it. But I didn’t, because none of my children has died.”

It is learned that after finding out that fake death registrations were being investigated, people from the Budhal union parishad office had gone to Matin and Salma’s house and left a death certificate there.

When asked, Budhal UP secretary (in additional charge) Md Hasan Bhuiya said, “There is pressure to meet targets. In trying to fill the target, a bit of this and that has to be done.”

Birth and death registration is centrally overseen by the government body, the Office of the Registrar General, Birth and Death Registration. Locally, however, the work is carried out by local government institutions. At the union level, registration is done at the union parishad office. After the UP secretary registers the name, the UP chairman approves it and issues the certificate. For a long time, people’s suffering related to birth and death registration has been highlighted in media reports. This time, information about fraud in registrations has come to light.

While this report was being prepared, the Deputy Director of Local Government (DDLG) in Brahmanbaria was Shankar Kumar Biswas, who has since been transferred. On 27 November, however, he told Prothom Alo, “The issue of pressure to meet targets is true. I was pressured from above. I pressured the UNO, and the UNO ran a ‘roller coaster’ over the UP secretaries.”

If targets were met, districts, upazilas, and unions were awarded first, second, and third place on Birth and Death Registration Day (though no awards were given this year). If targets were not met, UP secretaries were reprimanded, labeled incompetent, and threatened with transfer.

When asked, Registrar General Md Zahid Hossain told Prothom Alo that birth and death registration targets were set based on surveys by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). According to BBS estimates, 3.2 million children are born each year. How many children are actually born annually is something the health department can say. The target, he said, should be based on the actual number of births. When asked who bears responsibility for the fraud and why there is no oversight, he did not respond directly, instead citing a shortage of manpower and saying, “If you give me specific information about fraud, I will take action.”

For birth and death registration, around Tk 30,000 per year is allocated to each union parishad. In the 2025–26 fiscal year, the allocation for the Office of the Registrar General, Birth and Death Registration, is around Tk 450 million. Despite this huge expenditure, the database that is being created shows, for example, an 18-year-old listed as the mother of 19 children, along with countless fake records of child births and deaths. There is no security for the personal data stored in the database. Due to these fake registrations, the entire database has become questionable.