Gas Leak Check

Gopal was sitting in one corner of his house trying to reconcile with what had happened to his mother a few days ago.

It was the day when Gopal had gone out leaving his seventy-nine-year-old mother alone at home. This was not the first time that his mother Lakshmi stayed alone. They were veterans in that area and virtually every neighbour knew them well.

Around 11:00 AM, she heard the gate to her house open and saw a person in Khaki uniform enter the compound. He walked across the portico and knocked on the door. Cautious that she was, she peeped through the grilled window adjacent to the door and asked who it was. 

"Gas leak check madam," replied the man in Khaki.

"I have not complained about any leak," replied Lakshmi boldly

"Regular periodic check madam, I will take only two minutes," replied the man.

Having seen him in the gas agency down the road, she believed him and opened the door to let him in. He was carrying a leather bag which she assumed had the necessary tools for performing the check.

She was shocked when he pulled out a big knife from the bag and threatened her even as she tried raising an alarm.

Gopal returned a few hours later only to find his mother lying in a pool of blood, the gold ornaments on her body missing and the steel Almira wide open. 

All the residents in the locality gheraoed the gas distributor who himself was shell shocked. He produced all the copies of the identity proof the culprit has submitted while joining the agency, to the police. During their course of investigating the police found the identity proofs submitted, to be dubious. That man had submitted fake identification.

That is when the distributor learnt from one of his friends who also was in the same business about Pehechano, the portal where the identity of an individual can be verified. He immediately got all his staff registered on that portal and whenever they were sent on errands, an SMS indicating the Pehechano ID of the person attending was sent to the customer. The residents were satisfied that they could, from then on, verify the identity of the person before letting him or her, in. If only the distributor had known about Pehechano earlier, Gopal's mother would not have lost her life.