In yet another stunning revelation by the Regional Passport office (RPO) here, most of the birth certificates attached with the applications seeking passports coming from Jamshedpur have been found fake during the verification process.
This is again a fact, brought to the light by the RPO after it revealed how eight Bangladeshis illegally managed to obtain their passports from Sahebganj to the state police, during ‘DGP Aapke Dwar’ programme on May 13.
“Taking a suo-motto cognizance on the basis of media reports that more than half of the birth certificates issued in Jharkhand were fake we started sending all the birth certificates attached with the applications received by us for verification. The response which we got was really shocking for all of us," Regional Passport Officer Sanatan told The Pioneer. Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee informed the RPO that out of 124 certificates sent for verification, 101 had not been issued by them.
“Earlier also, out of 94 applications received from Jamshedpur, only 26 birth certificates were authentic,” Sanatan added.
He said that East Singhbum, being the most developed district in the State, is the place from where maximum number of applications are received followed by Hazaribagh, Bokaro and Giridih. "On an average, one lakh applications per year are received from the across the State," he added. Since the State is the unit for them, they do not maintain individual data of all the districts, he added. The passport is issued by the RPO purely on the basis of police verification report prepared by the concerned district police. "As soon as the concerned SP clears the verification from his office, a print command is automatically generated here at our office. It is a system generated process without any human interference, hence we request the police not to be callous during the verification process," he added.
“SPs will also have to be very sensitive while giving the clearance as national security could not be compromised at any cost,” he added.
“I have requested the DGP that the SPs of the bordering districts of the state must be extra careful and sensitive while doing the police verification,” added Sanatan. Sanatan also asserted that the Passport Office could not be cheated as it has been made fool-proof, but at the same time it becomes helpless if police verification itself is not done in a right manner.
“The same thing happened in the case of eight Bangladeshis where police verification was clear and on the basis of which we issued the passport but the moment we got informed about the adverse physical verification report, we deactivated all those passports,” he said.
Sanatan further maintained that we have not only reduced the element of corrupt practices, but also completely eliminated any possibility of corrupt practices in the process of issuance of passport. “We expect the same professional approach and attitude from the state government,” he said.
A case of eight Bangladeshis obtaining passports from Sahebganj on the basis of fake documents was revealed during the DGP’s interaction programme with the passport applicants through video conferencing, following which a probe was ordered by him seeking a report on it. The reports are yet to come.
“We have already filed a case and an enquiry has also been ordered in the case, reports of which are still awaited. We are expecting reports within a day or two, as soon as it comes to us, we will submit it to the DGP,” said ADG (Special Branch) Rezi Dung Dung. Sahebganj SP Awadh Bihari Ram, without disclosing any details regarding the investigation, also said that the required action are being taken and reports will be submitted soon to the police headquarters.