The Central Bureau of Investigation has conducted raids in 50 areas of West Bengal and Gangtok. They conducted this raid to investigate the passport scam case. CBI has detained an officer posted in Gangtok and a middleman. Names of 16 officers are also included among the 24 people registered in the FIR. At present raids are being conducted in Kolkata, Siliguri, Gangtok and other places.
What is passport scam?
A whole network is working across the country to carry out a passport scam, in which citizens of other countries are being given genuine Indian passports through fake documents. With this, people from Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to Rohingya coming from Myanmar are easily becoming real citizens of India. This passport is completely original, that is, in case of any kind of investigation, its complete record will be present in the passport offices. This may make it impossible to declare people holding these passports as infiltrators.
How did CBI reach the network of this racket?
The CBI on Friday arrested a doctor of Port Health Organization on charges of taking a bribe of Rs 54,000. This doctor was caught red-handed while taking a bribe Scam on Thursday. This doctor has campuses in Paradip, Cuttack and Balasore in Odisha. After searching all these places, Rs 17 lakh in cash and 20,558 US dollars were recovered. Besides, documents of properties worth crores of rupees purchased by the doctor in Hyderabad, Odisha and Telangana were also found. During the interrogation of the doctor, CBI got a lead about the fake passport racket.
Siliguri passport centre raided
CBI had raided the Passport Seva Laghu Kendra (PSLK) located in Siliguri. According to ANI, the senior superintendent of the centre and a middleman have been arrested in this raid. Only after this, CBI has started raids at about 50 locations in Kolkata, Gangtok, Siliguri and many other places.
