Sri Lankan woman with Indian passport arrested

A 57-year-old Sri Lankan woman was arrested while attempting to fly to the island nation through the Trichy international airport on an Indian passport.

H Meherbanu, who is married to an Indian and residing in Morsingpettai in Beema Nagar was caught by immigration officials on Thursday evening while she was boarding a flight to Sri Lanka as they found that she had obtained an Indian passport by submitting fake documents.

Police said the woman and her parents had migrated to Trichy in 1981 and since then she has been living here. She also got married to Mohammed Hanifa, an Indian. The woman lost her Sri Lankan passport. Instead of taking steps to get a new passport, she obtained an Indian passport.

Using the passport, she had travelled to Sri Lanka multiple times but managed to escape without raising any suspicion.

On Thursday, the immigration officer checked her passport and asked about her place of birth. The woman spilled the beans that she was born in Sri Lanka. But the passport mentioned that she was born in India. Since her information was contrary to the place of birth mentioned in her passport, the officials caught her and handed her over to the police.

The airport police arrested Meherbanu based on a complaint from chief immigration officer of Trichy airport, Kapil Shukla. Police booked her under three sections of the IPC, Passport Act and Foreigners Act and produced her in court. The court remanded her in judicial custody.

Source: Times of India

-Agencies