The Tamil Nadu government on Sunday said the probe into a passport racket involving Sri Lankan nationals has revealed the involvement of 41 people, including Indian police and passport officials, and that a final report in the matter will be filed in a court soon.

The case was being probed by the Madurai division of the Tamil Nadu police’s Q Branch, that deals with extremist activities, after it received information that some Sri Lankan nationals were trying to obtain Indian passports to travel abroad.

A case in this regard was registered in September 2019, a Home Department release said.

A probe into procurement of passports by submitting fake documents revealed the involvement of 41 people, including five police officials, 14 zonal passport officers and two postal department employees, it said.

A total of 15 persons — four Sri Lankan Tamils and 11 travel agents — have been arrested in connection with the case so far.

Sanction has been accorded by the police and postal departments to initiate action against the respective employees, even as the Madurai Collector had in May this year gave consent to file a charge sheet against the then Assistant Commissioner of Police (Intelligence) over the matter, it said.

While sanction has been sought from the Centre to take action against 14 passport officials in December 2021, a communication was received from it seeking some clarifications which have been submitted in March 2022. But no sanction has been received so far, it added.

“The Q branch probe has been completed and the final report against the 41 persons is to be submitted in court,” the release added.

During investigation, 124 passports were recovered. It also came to light that 51 persons had received Indian passports. Of these combined 175 passports, 28 had been obtained by Sri Lankan Tamils by producing fake documents and cases have been filed against them in different parts of the state.

Investigation was on to ascertain what was the status of 30 other passports, the release said.

Among the rest 117, except for one ‘fake’ Indian passport, the 116 belonged to Indian nationals, it added.

Source: PTI

--Agencies