Indian twist in passport racket - Nepalis posed as Indians to get jobs with better pay abroad

Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, 8 September 2016: A passport racket reported by police in Darjeeling has thrown up an unusual nugget on overseas employment - that Indians in some places in Southeast Asia are paid higher than Nepalis, prompting some in the Himalayan country to procure fake Indian passports.

The racket, which the police said was operational till two years ago, has also turned the glare of connivance on the law enforcers.

The police said after 2014, when biometric scans for identification were started at passport seva kendras to tighten the security process, the cases of impostor-aided passports were not reported.

Asked why Nepali citizens would go abroad to places like Hong Kong to work as Indians, a police source said: "In some cases, the job opening was only for Indians. In other cases, the pay was better for Indians. There were different reasons."

Amit P. Javalgi, the superintendent of Darjeeling police, today said two kingpins of the racket and a Nepali woman, who went to Hong Kong on an Indian passport made in someone else's name, had bee arrested over the past one-and-a-half months.

The police identified the arrested trio as John Rai, 35, a resident of Sukhiapokhari on the India-Nepal border, Dawang Bhutia, 55, from Sonada and Poonam Gurung, 30, who is from Nepal.

The trio are in judicial custody now.

"They (the racketeers) used to make fake Indian passports to send Nepali citizens abroad. We came across 30-35 fake passports and asked the passport authority to cancel them," Jawalgi said.

The investigators said John and Dawang or a Nepali citizen who had wanted to go abroad would apply for an Indian passport in the name of a genuine person living in the Darjeeling hills.

"The person in whose name the passport was issued doesn't seem to have applied. A fictitious person would pose as a person who had applied for the passport and get the document verified," said a police source.

These passports would be used by citizens of Nepal to go abroad for jobs. Poonam Gurung went to Hong Kong as an unskilled worker with the name Neelam Tamang, a resident of Sukhiapokhri.

"There is a person by the name Neelam Tamang in Sukhiapokhri but she never applied for a passport. Poonam got a passport in the name of Neelam after paying Rs 1.3 lakh to the racketeers," said the police source.

As police verification at the passport applicant's residence was required earlier before the passport was handed over, the police suspect a section of local cops may have connived with the racketeers.

Poonam had gone to Hong Kong in 2013 and returned in 2015.

During the same time, the police also got complaints from some people in Sonada that they had received passports although they had not applied for one. "It seems the racketeers would manage to get the passport before it was delivered to the address. But in some cases the passports did reach the address, raising the alarm," said the police source.

Most of the passports were forged before 2014. "The online process of applying for passports became fully operational in November 2014. The new process requires the person to go to the passport office for retina and finger print impression. We have not come across such fake passports issued after 2014," said a police source.