Ghaziabad Police bust racket, arrest 5 in fraudulent passport case

Ghaziabad (UP), Feb 1 (PTI) Police here busted a racket that fraudulently obtained over two dozen passports from the Delhi Passport Office using fake addresses, officials said on Sunday.

The case came to light after the Regional Passport Officer wrote to the police in December last year, flagging suspicious applications in which multiple passports were issued on the same address and the same mobile number was used repeatedly, they said.

Investigation revealed that the applicants never resided at the addresses mentioned in the passport applications, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rural) Surendra Nath Tiwari told PTI.

An FIR has been registered against 26 persons, including a postman and a woman. Five accused, including the postman, have been arrested so far, police said.

The postman, identified as Arun Kumar, was hand in glove with the racket and charged Rs 2,000 per passport for delivering the documents directly to members of the gang instead of the listed addresses, the DCP said.

During questioning, Arun Kumar told police that around five months ago, two men, Prakash Subba and Vivek, contacted him and offered Rs 2,000 for every passport if he agreed to hand them over, police said.

Intelligence agencies are also probing the wider nexus behind the racket, Tiwari said.

Further investigation is underway, police said. PTI COR CDN HIG HIG