NEW DELHI: A man and his wife, both Bangladesh nationals, were caught while attempting to flee to Turkey from Delhi airport on forged Indian identities.
The accused, identified as Maruf Khan (42) and his wife Evana Soheli (35), had allegedly fraudulently obtained Indian passports bearing the names Tapash Ghosh and Sipra Ghosh, respectively.
Both of them were nabbed by security agencies on May 23 at the Delhi airport and later handed over to the police which then registered an FIR under sections 419 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Passport Act and the Foreigners Act.
According to the FIR, accessed by The New Indian Express, both were attempting to depart from India by flight no 6E-11 to Istanbul, Turkey and during scrutiny of their travel documents and questioning, they revealed that they are Bangladeshi nationals.
"As these passengers tried to cheat Indian immigration by fraudulently obtaining Indian passports despite being Bangladesh nationals, a case under relevant sections of law may be registered against them," the complaint from the airport official read.
As per the FIR, it was revealed that the couple were also having Bangladesh passports with their original names.
Just last week, the Crime Branch had busted an international racket in Delhi that was involved in illegally sending people to foreign shores and had arrested four people in this connection. With their arrest, a total of 80 passports of various countries along with a large number of forged and incriminating documents, stamps and laptops were also seized.
For illegal entry in the US through the Mexico border, the accused used to charge a person around Rs 27 lakhs. To send people out, they had adopted two routes, one was Baku-Istanbul- El Salvador route and the second was the Europe-Mexico route.