Kolkata, Feb 17 (IANS): A single-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Monday, observed that the possession of Indian identity documents like Aadhaar cards or EPIC cards does not always prove genuine Indian citizenship, considering instances of such forged identity documents being recovered from a number of illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators in the recent past.
During the hearing on a case related to possession of a fake passport on Monday, the single-judge Bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh made this observation.
He also observed that many illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators, after possessing such fake Indian documents, also pay taxes and file Income Tax returns to authenticate their Indian citizenship.
On this count he also referred to the instances of the US sending back illegal Indian infiltrators there.
Recently, cops in West Bengal arrested Dulal Shil and his wife Swapna Shil from East Burdwan district on charges of possessing fake Indian passports.
On Monday, the counsels for the accused couple claimed that their client came to India in 2010.
He also argued that under a particular Act on foreigners’ registration there are provisions that people coming to India before 2014 can be considered as Indian citizens.
He also argued that the immigration department has not given any response on the status of his clients and hence it could not be assumed that their passports were fake ones.
However, Justice Ghosh was not satisfied with the arguments of the defence counsel and also rejected their bail pleas.
On that point he made the observation that possession of certain Indian documents does not always prove genuine Indian citizenship.
Recently, in wake of the crisis in neighbouring Bangladesh, the West Bengal Police has begun a crackdown on rackets arranging for forged Indian identity documents, including forged passports for Bangladeshi infiltrators.
The investigating officials in such cases have identified a specific pattern in the operations of such rackets engaged in arranging fake Indian passports for the infiltrators.
Any infiltrators illegally crossing over into 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.
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 fake passports on the basis of these other fake identity documents.