At least two Bangladeshi nationals have been arrested on charge of attempting to secure passports by producing fake documents in Odisha's Balasore district.
The duo were arrested yesterday and forwarded to jail today, Balasore district Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) S K Nayak said at a press conference here. However, two others allegedly involved in the racket, managed to escape, police said.
The Bangladeshi nationals were identified as Sk Mofijul Islam and Md Yusuf Byapari of Chandpur district in Bangladesh. While Yusuf has been working in Saji Tower Masjid, Mumbai for 22 years, Md Mafizul Islam worked as a labourer in a stone crushing unit of Safa Area in Mumbai.
Both of them applied for Indian Passport claiming that they belonged to Kadarayan village in Balasore district, Nayak said adding that they had come to the Passport Seva camp organised at Advanced Plastics Processing Technology Centre (APPTC) at Bampada on the outskirts of the coastal town for the applicants residing in Balasore, Bhadrak and Mayurbhanj districts.
However, the camp photographer Shouvik Adhikari doubted Mofijul from his language. "Since it was previously noticed that some foreigners, especially Bangladeshis, were trying to obtain passports stating this village to be their native place, we suspected Mofijul could be one of them. Later, Riyajudin, who was accompanying Mofijul, was caught," said a passport official.
Nayak said both came in contact with one Sk Taj alias Sk Tajudin, son of Sk Rasul of village Kadarayan under Singla police station limit. SK Taj worked as a broker at the Regional Passport Office in Bhubaneswar.
"In order to make duplicate passport in fake address, Sk Taj made their Aadhar cards and bank pass books at SBI, Rasgobindpur," the ASP said adding that a case has been registred against the duo under different sections of IPC, Passport Act and Foreigneers Act.
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