25 passport forgery cases in three years at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru
BENGALURU: Bengaluru saw 11 cases of passport forgeries at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) last year, and four cases till May of this year, but there seems to be no system in place to single out lawbreakers travelling with illegal documents.
Before the introduction of data stored in the computerised system, one of the ways in which passports were forged was by starting a new bank account using a rental agreement of the same person, but with a different name. The individual is then able to apply for a passport with a different identity.
“At present, the only challenge they have is in fingerprinting. But with no physical verification of these documents at the airport, individuals continue to travel freely from the city,” says lawyer Shakeeb Mohammed, who says he has seen at least three cases this year of people who were trying to abscond from the country and were successfully able to do so.
Most of these cases are people who have criminal cases against them, and do not want to approach the Indian Embassy as it is a time-consuming process. This is also one of the main reasons why illegal passports are getting forged in the first place, according to Shakeeb.
Sub-inspector Varun Kumar at the Airport Police Station says that there have been over 25 cases of passport forgery in the last three years, and only two cases have been convicted so far in the same time period. “They are booked under cheating and under the Passport Act 1967. They will be convicted for seven years,” he says.Security officials at KIA were unavailable for comment.