3 more held in Karnal for making passports on fake papers

Tribune News Service

Karnal, February 5

A day after the Karnal police busted a gang allegedly involved in making passports on the basis of fake documents and arrested 16 persons, they nabbed three more accused, including a passport holder, on Saturday. With this, total 19 persons have been arrested in the case.

CRIMINAL RECORD under scrutiny

We are collecting the criminal records of all passport holders. We will also inquire about all persons who have obtained a passport on local addresses. Ganga Ram Punia, Karnal SP

Moreover, eight police teams, comprising three of the CIA, are on the job to break the nexus of fraudsters involved in the crime. The Karnal police have so far identified 21 passport holders, of them five have already been arrested while two are in a Punjab jail. Still 14 such persons are untraceable.

“We have arrested Rupinder Singh of Delhi’s Virender Nagar, Gurdhiyan Singh of Ambala’s Mallour and Rohit Arora of Punjab’s Amritsar. Rohit is a passport holder, while the other two are middlemen,” said Ganga Ram Punia, SP. “Eight teams are working on different angles and are trying to arrest all persons involved in this nexus.”

The number of such passports could go up as the police were going to look into the ones issued in the last four years, said an official.

On Friday, the police had arrested 16 persons, including two cops, a postman, an employee of Delhi passport office, three agents, four passport holders and other gang members. Two passport holders are in a Punjab jail and the Karnal police will bring them here for further investigation.

Sources in the police claimed two persons of Punjab allegedly involved in terrorist activities managed to get passports on fake documents, but Punia said he could comment on it after reviewing the criminal background.

The sources further said the gang of fraudsters used to charge between Rs 1.5 and Rs 2 lakh per passport. Only the photograph was original, while the remaining documents like address proof and marksheet were fake.

Meanwhile, the police are suspecting some of the accused might have fled abroad. However, the Karnal police have already issued look out circulars, so that no person who had obtained passports on fake papers could go abroad in future. Also, all passports were on the addresses that come under Sector-32/33 police station, mainly of SP Colony and Sandhu Colony, the police said.

About the modus operandi, the SP said the applicants approached one of the three agents — Raman of Ambala, Amit Khatkar of Karnal and Mahesh Narang of Delhi. Mahesh had links with Munish who works in Delhi passport office. Karnal-based agent Amit had links with the cops and postman, who conducted the verification.

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