A few years back, the Indian Postal Services came up with an incredible idea that would make you want to write letters often. They started a service that lets people customize postal stamps with any photo they want. Imagine writing a letter to your loved one with an adorable picture of you as a stamp. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Well, there’s a flip side to it too.
Recently, someone ordered customized stamps featuring underworld dons. An inquiry was issued by the Kanpur postal department after 24 stamps featuring underworld don Chhota Rajan and gangster Munna Bajrangi were printed by the main post office in the city, reports Money Contol.
As per an official, twelve stamps each of Chhota Rajan and Munna Bajrangi were printed under the ‘My Stamp’ scheme. The request for these stamps was made anonymously by a person. With a face value of ₹ 5, the individual paid a total of ₹ 600 for all the stamps.
Postmaster General VK Varma called it a lapse by the person manning the ‘My Stamp’ desk. He mentioned how the person released the stamps with the pictures without asking for identification papers, which is essential, reports NDTV. He further added, “A probe has been launched.”
Kanpur: Post Office releases stamps of criminals Chhota Rajan & Munna Bajrangi.
"Postal dept provides the facility to get 'My Stamp' made, by submitting a form along with ID. Our employees should've been careful in verifying pics," says Himanshu Mishra, Chief Post Master, Kanpur pic.twitter.com/xYRMWEPT9V
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) December 28, 2020
Philately department in-charge Rajneesh Kumar was prima facie found guilty. He has been placed under suspension. “We have also issued show-cause notices to some other employees in this regard. Efforts are on to zero in on the person who got the photographs of the criminals printed under the ‘My Stamp’ scheme,” the postmaster general said.
Mr. Varma further said that strict measures will be taken in the future to ensure such errors are never repeated. Under the ‘My Stamp’ scheme, you can get stamps with your photos or that of your family members printed by paying ₹ 300. As for the underworld dons, Munna Bajrangi was murdered in UP’s Baghpat prison in 2018 and Chhota Rajan is currently in a Mumbai prison.