Maharashtra police unearthed a passport racket in which Pune’s local passport office is involved. They issued passports to many Bangladeshis who entered Bharat unlawfully. These people used fake rental agreements from a slum area to get the passports.
Around six people got passports by using a rental agreement with the name of a woman who had already passed away to show they lived in a slum. The Pune Police Commissioner said that if any staff or officials from the passport department are involved, they will face consequences.
The Mumbai Police arrested six Bangladeshi people, and during the investigation, it was found that they got passports using fake documents related to a slum house in Yerawada’s Yashwant Nagar. This house belonged to a woman named Suman Tujare, who is no longer alive. Similar fake documents were used to get four more passports for an address in Hadapsar. About 70 passports were issued to illegal Bangladeshis using counterfeit documents in the last few months.
The investigation showed that these illegal Bangladeshis wanted to go to Gulf countries using Bharatiya passports. Given the seriousness of the fraud, the police plan to take action against those involved in the passport section. Further investigations confirmed that all the suspects were citizens of Bangladesh who entered Bharat illegally. The Pune police commissioner, Retesh Kumaar, mentioned, “We have looked into the matter, and five police personnel from the passport section are facing consequences for not doing proper checks.”
As per a report by The Indian Express, a late Suman Tujare family member said, “We never let anyone stay in our house. Surprisingly, fake rental agreements were used to get multiple passports using our addresses. We provided Suman Tujare’s death certificate to the Mumbai police team during their investigation.”
The investigation also found serious mistakes regarding police verification before issuing passports. The Pune police reported that everything was passed without visiting Tujare’s home to ensure the people applying for passports lived there. The passport office relied on this report to issue Bharatiya passports to people from Bangladesh.
Mumbai police launch probe
In the last two and a half months, a team from Borivali police in Mumbai, led by Sub Inspector Pramod Nimbalkar from the Anti Terrorist Cell (ATC) and Senior Inspector Ninad Sawant, caught 20 Bangladeshi migrants and two Bharatiya citizens involved in a scheme providing passports, Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, and other documents to people without proper papers.
The police found 10 Bharatiya passports issued in Pune, along with fake rental agreements, fake Bharatiya birth certificates, Aadhaar and PAN cards, Bharatiya voter ID cards, Bangladeshi money, and more, during the arrests in Mumbai and Pune.
Sub Inspector Pramod Nimbalkar, from the ATC, shared that two individuals, Rahul Singh (also known as Shahrukh Khan) and Salman Ayub Khan, both originally from Bangladesh, are accused of helping Bangladeshi people illegally enter Bharat by crossing the international border. Rahul, who lived in Pune, is believed to have escaped to Bangladesh, while Salman has been caught.
Nimbalkar explained, “After reaching West Bengal, the racketeers gave the Bangladeshi migrants fake Indian birth certificates. Then they sent them to Mumbai and Pune, where they got Aadhaar cards and PAN cards using the fake birth certificate. The suspects then applied for Indian passports using Pune addresses. The agents provided fake rental agreements from Pune as proof of address, even though the Bangladeshi migrants never lived there. Some lawyers in Pune made these notarized rental agreements without checking the facts.”
Individuals Behind the Facilitation of Fake Documents
Sainath Yeilwad, who is currently evading arrest, is accused of issuing fake rental agreements with the address of deceased Suman Tujare to six illegal Bangladeshi people. Investigator Nimbalkar mentioned, “We are looking into why Tujare’s address was chosen for the scam.” Additionally, an agent named Kusum Gaikwad provided fake rent agreements for a Hadapsar address to four illegal migrants. She has been arrested and was involved in cheating cases before. She made phoney rent agreements using the name of her former driver.
Talking about the plans of these illegal Bangladeshi individuals to go to the Gulf, Nimbalkar explained, “There seems to be a big scheme where Bangladeshi citizens were brought to India illegally and then sent to Gulf countries as Indian citizens for jobs. They paid around Rs 7 lakhs to be part of this. We found a website that is being used for such schemes.”
70 Bangladeshis got Indian passports using fake documents
Sub Inspector Pramod Nimbalkar shared, “Our investigation found that around 70 people from Bangladesh were sent to Gulf countries using Indian passports in the past few years. Even the ones we caught had Indian passports and the same intentions. It looks like the Bangladeshi individuals thought it was easier and more affordable for Indian citizens to find jobs in the Gulf. So, instead of trying for jobs in the Gulf from Bangladesh, they entered India illegally.”
