Passport racket: Fake IDs used to give Indian travel papers to Nepalese citizens

New Delhi, Oct 15 (PTI) Officials and middlemen who were running a fake passport racket that was busted by the CBI were issuing Indian travel documents to Nepalese citizens based on forged documents in exchange for hefty bribes, officials said on Sunday.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) busted the racket involving passport department officials and middlemen in West Bengal and Sikkim following raids at 50 locations in the two states on Saturday. It arrested two persons, including an official of Passport Laghu Seva Kendra (PLSK) in Gangtok.

The CBI has named 24 people in its FIR, including 16 passport department officials, mainly from the Regional Passport Office (RPO), Kolkata.

According to the CBI FIR, the "clique" of officials and agents was even managing police verification and delivery of passports through a postman on non-existing addresses.

The CBI has 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.

The modus operandi revealed in the FIR showed that 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.

During September-October, two officers of Kolkata RPO — Senior Superintendent Goutam Kumar Saha and Junior Passport Assistant (JPA) Tenji Nima Sherpa -- have been stationed at Gangtok PLSK, according to the FIR.

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.

On the advice of Sachin Kumar, Sachin Rai and Barun Singh Rathore colluded with a postman posted at Bagdogra Sub-Post Office, Pappu Salani, who handed the passports to the agents instead of delivering them to the addresses mentioned on the dispatch, it claimed.

"The individual applicants are the citizens of Nepal who later visit India and collect the Indian passports mischievously issued to them from Sachin Rai and Barun Singh Rathore," the FIR alleged.

Once the process is completed, Sachin Kumar would collect the bribe from Sachin Rai and Barun Singh Rathore through middlemen Bharat Mann Limbu and Chandan Pradhan. The money was distributed among Kolkata RPO and Gangtok PLSK officials either through direct delivery or through bank transfer into accounts of associates of the accused public servants, it stated.

The CBI also received an input that Sachin Rai and Barun Singh Rathore were also getting the work done through another Kolkata-based agent Chandeshwar Singh, who was operating in Kolkata RPO through a stenographer posted there, the officials said.

The stenographer, Manish Kumar Gupta, who was collecting illegal gratification from Chandeshwar Singh for further distribution to the officers in person or through bank accounts of their acquaintances, they said.

The CBI received information that on September 27, Sachin Rai and Barun Singh Rathore approached Sachin Kumar with 22 passport applications filed using forged documents, they said.

The agency received further input that on October 3, Debashish Bhattacharjee, Senior Passport Assistant (SPA) posted at RPO Kolkata, informed Sachin Kumar that he had processed 14 applications for which bribes should be transferred to him, according to the FIR.

On the instructions of Sachin Kumar, Rs 1 lakh was transferred in multiple tranches to the bank account of a driver of Debashish Bhattacharjee's colleague and RPO SPA Uttam Kumar Behera.

The CBI found repeated deposits being made in accounts of the officials' acquaintances.

The CBI arrested Goutam Kumar Saha, posted as Senior Superintendent at PLSK, Gangtok, and agent Dipu Chetri from a Siliguri hotel on Saturday while the latter was allegedly paying a bribe of Rs 1.9 lakh for the issuance of a passport.

The federal agency has named Kolkata RPO officials — Deputy Passport Officer (DPO) Tapan Das; Assistant Passport Officer (APO) Ekalabya Chakraborty; Assistant Superintendent Radha Gobinda Halder; stenographer Manish Kumar Gupta; SPAs Debasis Bhattacharjee, Uttam Kumar Behera, Eliza Sarkar Biswas, Ramesh Kumar Sahoo, Nishit Baran and Mritunjay Das; Data Entry Operator (DEO) Sahanur Rahaman Sekh; and Superintendents Partha Kumar Das and Amal Das.

Goutam Kumar Saha, Tenji Nima Sherpa and Sachin Kumar, all posted at Gangtok PLSK, postman Pappu Sahani and agents Sachin Rai, Barun Singh Rathore, Chandeshwar Singh, Ajay Choudhury, Dipu Chetri, Subrata Saha and Uday Shankar Roy have also been named in the FIR as accused. PTI ABS DIV DIV DIV