The family of a 50-year-old woman from Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly claimed she died of starvation on Tuesday because they were denied their monthly quota of cheaper foodgrains as she could not go to the ration shop for biometric identification for her Aadhaar, NDTV reported on Wednesday.

The district administration, however, denied that Shakina died of starvation. An official was quoted as saying by The Indian Express on Wednesday that the woman had been unwell for the past few days.

The family has alleged that it was not given rations under the Public Distribution System for November because Shakina, who is marked as the head of the family in the ration card, was too ill to even be taken to the shop. “My wife died because of hunger,” said Mohammed Ishaq. “We used to take her to the shop in a rickshaw, but this time she was very ill.”

Ishaq said the family begged the ration shop owner, but he refused to give them anything until Shakina came and identified herself using the fingerprint scanner at the shop.

On Wednesday, a team from the Uttar Pradesh government recorded the family’s statements. “We found that the allegation that Shakina’s death was from starvation is false,” Sub-Divisional Magistrate Ram Akshay said, according to The Indian Express. Akshay said the team also found out Shakina had Rs 4,572 in her bank account.

However, he confirmed that Shakina could not go to the shop this month because of her health.

Seema Tripathi, the official in charge of foodgrain supply in Bareilly told NDTV that there is no provision of the government that “people will be denied rations because of an Aadhaar card”. “We have alternative systems in place,” she said.

The family’s claims come weeks after 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari, a Dalit girl from Jharkhand’s Simdega district, died asking for rice after her family was denied food rations for six months because their ration card was not linked to their Aadhaar number.