Wednesday, Oct 20, 2004
The Hindu
NEW DELHI OCT. 19. A racket in allowing Afghan refugees to have Indian
passports on the basis of forged documents has been unearthed by the
Central Bureau of Investigation. Officials of the Delhi regional
passport office and the Delhi police are suspected to be involved in
the racket. One person has also been arrested in this connection.
According to the CBI, the arrested person, Suraj Ratra, a Faridabad
resident, was an Afghan refugee who had managed to get the Indian
passport through the racket. Sources said while antecedents of the
accused were being verified, it was possible that he had gone to
Afghanistan earlier when the situation was better but had to leave the
country after it worsened.
Earlier, the CBI had launched a drive in the last week of September to
check corruption in the passport department. It was during this drive
Suraj Ratra’s case came to light. Following investigations, the CBI
registered another criminal case which was related to the first one.
Several incriminating documents were also recovered in the searches
carried out in Faridabad and Delhi during the drive.