The Sahebganj SP today earned the wrath of State’s DGP Rajiv Kumar after it was pointed out by the Regional Passport Officer (RPO) how the police were indulging in shoddy verification of the persons for getting Bangladeshi passports.
The DGP was interacting with the district police headquarters across the State along with Regional Passport Officer Sanatan and other senior police officials taking grievances from the people on the issues of issuing passports and character certificates for getting jobs under ‘DGP Aapke Dwar’ programme.
Raising serious questions over passport verification process in the State, Sanatan, during the programme, pointed out that he had issued eight Bangladeshi passports after getting the verification report regarding their address and character from the Sahebganj SP. But later, when the police reached to the said addresses for spot verification, found the address to be fake. Reacting swiftly, the RPO was informed by the SP regarding the mistake requesting to cancel those passports.
“The passports were cancelled after getting a request from the office of Sahebganj SP,” Sanatan said. “We act on the correspondence with the concerned SP and had issued the passport after getting a clearance from him some three months back, but the moment we got a fresh correspondence from Sahebganj SP, we cancelled their passports,” pointed out Sanatan. Those who were issued passports on fake addresses, according to official records are said to be self-employed and are still beyond the reach of the police.
Taking a serious view of the lapse, the DGP immediately ordered an inquiry and sought an explanation from the Sahebganj SP as to how it happened. The DGP later told The Pioneer that he was not imputing any motive for issuing fake passports but will take action against the police official found guilty of committing such a serious offence.
“The police need to go deep into the matter and should find out on which level the mistake was committed. Also, the passport officer should have informed us immediately when the goof up happened,” he added.
Meanwhile, the DGP, while hearing another grievance from a person in Bagodar, asked the Giridih SP to file a report within 24 hours. The Bagodar resident’s complaint was that the police issued a negative verification report to the passport authorities when he gave the police official only Rs 400.
The DGP reviewed the applications pending for address and character verification required for getting a job and directed the concerned SPs to expedite the process. “Issues mostly related to passport verification and negative reports were raised by the applicants which I tried to sort out on the spot,” the DGP added.
Under the programme, the DGP interacts with people and superintendents of police in 24 districts through video-conference. Any person who has been harassed by police for character certificate or passport verification can lodge a complaint with the DGP. The first chapter of the programme in November had received a good response.