Bengal passport racket: Cops trying to track PDS dealers acting as roots of creating fake documents

Kolkata, Dec 20 (IANS) Officials of investigating agencies probing the rackets engaged in arranging fake Indian passports for illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, are now trying to track the roots of this menace in a section of public distribution system (PDS) dealers in West Bengal.

Sources said that preliminary investigation has revealed such errant PDS dealers constitute the base of the pyramid structure in the racket of the creation of fake passports.

Explaining the modus operandi of the crime, the sources said that once an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant steps into the Indian side and contacts the agents of such rackets, the process of creation of fake ration cards for the infiltrator begins.

The agents of such rackets contact the local PDS dealers for the list of ration cards that expired recently because of the demise of the cardholder concerned or for not collecting rations allotted for that card for a long time. Thereafter, one such particular card was selected and based on that, a general diary on its misplacement was filed.

Later, based on that general diary, the expired card was revived showing the illegal infiltrator as the beneficiary of the card. Thereafter, the chain system of the next lines of creation of fake Indian documents starts first with EPIC cards, followed by PAN and AADHAAR cards and finally fake passports.

The sources said errant PDS dealers' involvement was the base of the pyramid structure of this menace and involving a section of the Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) was the peak of the same structure.

So far five persons have been arrested in West Bengal in connection with such fake passport rackets of which two, Dipankar Das and Deepak Mondal, are contractual POPSK staff.

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