The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) busted a racket involving passport department officials and middlemen in West Bengal and Sikkim, said the officials on Sunday. The CBI raided at 50 locations in the two states on Saturday. Two persons, including an official of Passport Laghu Seva Kendra (PLSK) in Gangtok, were arrested by the officials.
According to the probe agency, the officials and the middlemen were running a fake passport racket that was used to issue Indian travel documents to Nepalese citizens based on forged documents in exchange for hefty bribes.
24 people, including 16 passport department officials, mainly from the Regional Passport Office (RPO), Kolkata, were named in the FIR, said the CBI official.
The "clique" of officials and agents was even managing police verification and delivery of passports through a postman on non-existing addresses, stated in the FIR.
The probe officials, during the investigation, tracked a trail of illicit payments for clearance of over 60 such passport applications by officials of Kolkata RPO and Gangtok PLSK based on forged documents supplied by middlemen.
How did the racket operate?
According to the officials, the modus operandi of the racket was revealed during the probe. Two Darjeeling-based agents - Sachin Rai and Barun Singh Rathore - allegedly applied for passports on behalf of Nepalese citizens using Indian identity documents like birth certificates, Aadhaar cards, voter cards and educational certificates, etc., forged with technical help from two other individuals -- Uday Shankar Roy and Subrata Saha.
These applications were submitted at the Post Office Passport Seva Kendra in Darjeeling and PLSK Gangtok. Sachin Kumar, posted at PLSK Gangtok, allegedly acted as a conduit between the agents and officials.
The agents handed the file numbers to Sachin Kumar for pursuing the applications and getting passports issued, the officials said.
Sachin Kumar, in connivance with the officials of PLSK Gangtok and RPO Kolkata, allegedly managed the process of scrutiny of documents, verification and personal appearance, they said.
Kolkata RPO officials are deputed to Gangtok PLSK every month on a rotational basis to verify the applications and issuance of passports.
According to the FIR. two officers of Kolkata RPO -- Senior Superintendent Goutam Kumar Saha and Junior Passport Assistant (JPA) Tenji Nima Sherpa -- have been stationed at Gangtok PLSK during September-October.
The FIR alleged that Sachin Rai, Barun Singh Rathore and another agent Ajay Choudhury usually managed the police verification.
After completion of the process, the passports were issued and dispatched by post.
"As the addresses given in the passport applications are false, the issued passports could not be delivered at these addresses to the individual applicants if sent by post," the FIR said.
(With PTI inputs)
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