New Delhi: In the crackdown on fake passport syndicates this year, the Delhi Police have arrested 19 foreign nationals who entered India illegally– mostly Bangladeshis–and 23 “agents” who churned out these bogus documents, including Aadhaar and PAN cards.
According to data shared by the arresting team, the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) unit, 12 foreigners from Bangladesh, three each from Myanmar and Nepal and one from Afghanistan have been jailed in 2024.
Of the 23 agents involved, there were one each from Myanmar and Bangladesh, while the rest were Indians – nine from West Bengal, four from Delhi, three from Maharashtra and one each from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Odisha, and Rajasthan.
Deputy Commissioner, IGI, Usha Rangnani said forged identities and fake passports aid crimes such as “human trafficking, terrorism, and financial fraud”. “These criminal networks, often involving foreign nationals from neighbouring countries, exploit India’s porous borders to enter the country illegally and fraudulently acquire Indian passports using such documents,” Rangnani said.
In a recent police drive in the capital, teams checked papers of people living in slums, footpaths and unauthorised colonies and fished out over 20 illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
Arrests started February
This year’s clampdown started off with the February arrest of a Bangladeshi who “returned” to India from Hong Kong using a forged passport. According to the police, he had entered India in 2019 through the Tripura border.
Two arrests in March, one Bangladeshi and another man from Afghanistan, led the police to a well-oiled counterfeit racket.
Probe revealed the Bangladeshi national had illegally entered India through the Meghalaya border in 2020 and settled in West Bengal. On his trail, the police uncovered a syndicate which created fake Indian documents, like Aadhaar and PAN cards, for Bangladeshi nationals.
“The operation led to the arrest of four agents in West Bengal who were orchestrating the scheme. Their offices yielded a significant cache of incriminating materials, including 21 fake passports issued under various names, photocopies of passports, blank stamp papers from the Bengal government and other forged documents,” DCP Rangnani said.
Meanwhile, the Afghanistan national led cops to another agent and exposed a syndicate that tampered with official records.
Two more arrests followed in April, those of Nepali nationals who were trying to board a flight to Cambodia using forged Indian passports. This led cops to a nexus of agents from Nepal and India.
In May, the IGI police arrested an agent from Myanmar and two agents from India. Three Myanmar nationals (Rohingyas) were also arrested after they were deported from Russia. Similar syndicates were busted in the following months.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also Read: Bangladeshi national held in Kolkata with ‘fake’ Indian passport, says he is former BNP leader