Indian IDs for Bangaldeshis: ED finds gap of less than 9 months between birth of brothers

New Delhi, Dec 16 (PTI) A "biological impossibility" of two sets of brothers born within three and seven months of each other, respectively, is part of the ED's fresh chargesheet into an alleged racket of illegally obtaining Indian documents for Bangladeshi nationals in West Bengal.

The main accused in the case is a Pakistani man, Azad Hussain alias Azad Mallik alias Ahammed Hossain Azad. His Indian accomplice is Indubhushan Haldar alias Dullal.

According to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the two were allegedly involved in fraudulently obtaining Indian identity documents for illegal immigrants from Bangladesh in exchange for money. Both were arrested by the ED's Kolkata zonal office in West Bengal this year and are currently lodged in jail under judicial custody.

The ED said in a statement on Tuesday that it filed a supplementary chargesheet in this case on December 11 before a special PMLA court in Kolkata and named Haldar and four others as accused.

The agency charge-sheeted Hussain in June as part of its first prosecution complaint filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The special court located at Bichar Bhavan in Kolkata has issued notice upon the accused persons (on the second chargehseet), the statement said.

The ED said some passport applications prepared by Halder contained "several discrepancies beyond imagination", underlining the fact that Indian IDs were issued for the Bangladeshis using "fabricated" documents.

In one instance, according to the agency, two brothers had furnished their dates of birth in the passport application form as 01.01.1988 and 01.04.1988, respectively -- a gap of only three months, which is biologically impossible.

"In another instance, two brothers have dates of birth as 24.10.1975 and 24.05.1976 respectively, a gap of only seven months, which is again dubious," the ED said.

The agency also found that a local Full Fledged Money Changer (FFMC) permitted Hussain to operate the forex counter despite being aware of his non-Indian identity. Hussain used to sell forex in public without any supporting documents for a commission, the ED said.

The directors of the forex company (Goldenize Forex and Travels Pvt. Ltd.) "systematically" misused their firm to launder illicit funds.

Funds worth more than Rs 80 crore were deposited into the company's bank accounts under the guise of foreign currency sales to multiple customers while in reality, these transactions involved forged documents, fake cash memos and unauthorised use of individual identities of numerous customers, according to the ED.

The probe found that Hussain procured multiple Indian identity documents such as Aadhaar, PAN card and passport. He also operated a hawala network to facilitate illegal cross-border remittances between India and Bangladesh, and collected payments in cash and UPI, before transferring equivalent amounts to Bangladesh using platforms like bKash, the ED said.

It said the two accused used to charge Rs 50,000 each for making Indian documents, including passports, and processed 300-400 such applications of illegal Bangladeshis in India. PTI NES DIV DIV