Case filed after three passport papers cleared with stolen login id/password

According to the police, the unknown accused had gotten access to the passport.gov.in portal created by the ministry of external affairs.

Mumbai: A case has been registered against an unknown person for allegedly clearing police verification of three passport applications by stealing a login ID and password of the Mumbai police special branch, officers said on Tuesday.

The police came to know about the fraud as the applications were cleared on September 24 (Shutterstock)

According to the police, the unknown accused had gotten access to the passport.gov.in portal created by the ministry of external affairs.

A case under sections 463 (forgery) and 467 (forgery of valuable security) among others of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and sections 66C (punishment for identity theft), and 66D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 has been registered at the Azad Maidan police station on Monday, a senior police officer said.

“At this moment we know that three applications have been cleared by the accused by fraudulently logging into our system,” said the officer, requesting anonymity. “Applications from Chembur, Antop Hill and Tilak Nagar police stations have been cleared by the unknown accused and positive reports have been submitted to the regional passport offices concerned to clear issuance of the passports to the three applicants.”

The police came to know about the fraud as the applications were cleared on September 24, when the branch was closed, the officers said. “We have checked the CCTV footage of the office for that day, but found nothing.”

“The branch then wrote to a technology company in Delhi that handles the servers of the passport website and has also got the internet protocol (IP) address from where the login to the portal had happened illegally,” added the officer.