Kolkata, Jan 7 (IANS): Four more cops are under the scanner of Kolkata Police over their involvement with rackets engaged in arranging fake Indian identity documents, including passports for the illegal infiltrators coming from neighbouring Bangladesh.
Sources aware of the development said that one of the four policemen is attached to the office of security control, and another is a police station-level cop.
Apart from that, one constable and altogether, nine persons have been arrested by the West Bengal Police. The last one arrested has been identified as Abdul Hai (61) who retired as a Sub-Inspector just a year ago.
Sources in the state police said that during the last few years of service, he was mainly assigned the task of "police verification" for the new passport applicants. He was arrested from his residence at Habra under Ashoknagar Police Station in North 24 Parganas district.
Recently, both West Bengal and Kolkata Police have started the process of investigation against their colleagues of lackadaisical "police verification" processes resulting in the issuance of fake Indian passports to Bangladeshi infiltrators.
The investigation started after a city court recently directed investigating officials to probe their colleagues in relevant police stations. The main charges against a section of cops engaged in the task of "police verification" for new passport applicants are that they did not physically make spot visits to the residences of certain passport applicants before submitting the clearance report on this count.
Since December 15, 2024, nine persons have been arrested for their involvement with rackets engaged in arranging fake Indian identity documents, including Indian passports, for illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators. Several Public Distribution System (PDS) dealers are also under scanner for helping in the process of getting fake ration cards for such illegal infiltrators. Getting fake ration cards was the foundation in the entire chain of securing other fake Indian documents with passports being the last step on the count.
The investigating officials have identified a pattern in the operations of such rackets engaged in arranging fake Indian passports for the illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Any infiltrator illegally crossing over to the Indian territory, contacting the local agents and showing willingness to pay out hefty amounts for getting fake Indian identity documents are first provided with safe shelters at the different villages adjacent to the borders with Bangladesh in the state, both land and coastal. Thereafter, the agents arrange for fake ration cards for them which are the first step for making other identity documents. By virtue of the fake ration cards, other identification documents like EPIC, PAN, and Aadhaar cards are acquired. The last step is getting the fake passports based on these other fake identity documents.