Bangladeshi arrested at CSMIA with Indian passport obtained using fake documents

Bangladeshi national, Jumo Shaikh, was arrested at Mumbai airport for attempting to fly to Dhaka with a fake passport. He is the 15th Bangladeshi national to be arrested in the past six months for using fake passports. Shaikh obtained the passport using fake documents, including a birth certificate, Aadhar, and PAN card. He had previously entered India illegally in 2011.

MUMBAI: Police in Sahar have arrested Jumo Shaikh, 34, a Bangladeshi national who was trying to fly from Mumbai to Dhaka on November 9 under a fake passport. Immigration officials at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) grew suspicious because he failed to state the purpose of his visit clearly, or even speak Marathi although his passport showed him as a resident of Chiplun. Shaikh is the 15th Bangladeshi national to be arrested at the airport in the past six months for trying to fly abroad using passports obtained via fake documents.

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On November 9, after Shaikh identified himself as Ashok Choudhary – the name on his passport, he told immigration officials that he was going to Dhaka to visit his sick mother. But when the officials checked the documents using which he had applied for the passport, they found that he had submitted a birth certificate issued by a hospital in Chiplun in Ratnagiri district in 1994.

Upon questioning, he said he had applied for a passport in 2017 with the help of an agent who made fake documents like his birth certificate, Aadhar and PAN card. Special branch officer L Singh, who questioned the accused, told the police that they then decided to verify his birth certificate.

A mail was sent to Roha Nagar Municipal Corporation asking officials to verify the genuineness of his birth certificate, purportedly issued from Bhat Nursing Home in Roha. Authorities from the nursing home reverted soon, saying they commenced operations in October 2000, and there was no possibility of any baby being born there in 1994.