The West Bengal Police has appealed to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to restructure this system and check the emerging fake passport racket, especially in the wake of the inferior situation in Bangladesh. Rajeev Kumar, the Director General of West Bengal Police, said on Sunday, “Police currently have a limited role in the verification process. Our company has also written to the MEA affirming its request for better verification processes. In the context of the proposed model, it is seen that our proposal pays greater attention to the DIB, local police stations, and senior officers.”
This appeal has been made following the recent busting of a syndicate that provided Indians fake passports for Bangladeshis by Kolkata Police. Six persons, including two temporary postal department employees, have been arrested in this connection.
Kumar identified limitations of the existing system, including software defects and passport delivery through the post offices. Again, there can only be coordinated work among all the agencies to deal with these shortcomings. He said enhancing the system was the right way to reduce misuse. Kumar also pointed out that police do not make any identity check on applicants, they do not check their addresses or signatures during the PVR because some of these aspects are now done by the Passport Seva Kendras and passport offices but if re-verification is sought.
This, according to Kumar, would imply that the district superintendents of police conduct physical verification in a personal capacity and undertake a more rigorous verification. “It seems like a good idea with the simplified process that the MEA seeks to make to procedures but stronger measures I think are needed,” he said.
A part of West Bengal lies along the long international border of 2,216 km with Bangladesh; still, some parts of the border are not even fenced. Successive attacks from the border through the Nagroboti Pos (NBP) show instances of attempts of infiltration and smuggling of drugs, gold, wildlife and FICN, thus making a strong passport verification system much more necessary.
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