The Uttar Pradesh Police and the regional passport authorities are blaming each other for the passport issued to suspected Pakistani spy Sayed Aamir Ali.
Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) on Thursday began probing the allegedly fake police verification letters that led to the issue of passports to 27 people, including Ali.
While the police are blaming the passport officials for failing to detect fake police verification letters, the passport authorities are claiming that they had no way of detecting the fraud.
Preliminary investigations, however, revealed that the passport officials did not follow procedures while processing the applications, while records were not properly maintained at the intelligence office.
Ali (36) was nabbed at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International airport on November 14 by a joint team of Delhi Police and the ATS. Following the arrest, the UP Police are trying to find out how did Ali manage to acquire an Indian passport and a driving licence.
Additional Director General (Law and Order) A.K. Jain said the ATS would also verify the signatures of the police, intelligence and passport officials on the files of the applicants.
Teams have been constituted to spot the 27 applicants to find out whether the applications were genuine, Jain said, adding that more applicants were being probed to expose the racket operating in the offices of passport authorities and the state police intelligence unit.
{{/usCountry}}Teams have been constituted to spot the 27 applicants to find out whether the applications were genuine, Jain said, adding that more applicants were being probed to expose the racket operating in the offices of passport authorities and the state police intelligence unit.
{{/usCountry}}“It’s clear that employees at both the offices were involved in it,” Jain said, adding, “We are also planning to introduce new procedures at the passport offices in Lucknow, Ghaziabad and Bareilly.”