In a significant crackdown on a sophisticated passport forgery network, the Haryana Police has successfully identified and moved to revoke a total of 77 passports that were fraudulently obtained using fabricated documents. The police have requested Regional Passport Officers (RPOs) across multiple cities, including Delhi, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Amritsar, and Ghaziabad, to cancel these illegally issued travel documents.
The Nexus: Police Officer and Passport Agent
The investigation, spearheaded by the Haryana Special Task Force (STF), revealed a deep-rooted conspiracy. At the heart of the racket was a Delhi Police Sub-Inspector (SI) responsible for passport verification in the Ashok Nagar area of East Delhi. The officer allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy with passport agents to facilitate the illegal issuance of passports.
The mastermind agent was identified as 70-year-old Bijender Kumar Jain from Shahdara, Delhi. Jain is accused of facilitating the issuance of 43 out of the 77 forged passports. He reportedly charged exorbitant fees, up to Rs 3 lakh per passport, from applicants seeking fraudulent documents.
Modus Operandi of the Forgery Racket
The racket operated with a clear division of labor. When an applicant approached agent Bijender Jain, he would contact the complicit Delhi Police SI. The officer would then instruct the applicant to prepare documents for addresses within his jurisdiction in Ashok Nagar to ensure smooth police verification. For this service, the SI charged approximately Rs 40,000.
To create the necessary forged documents, Jain collaborated with Sunny Kumar from Saharanpur, UP. Sunny used CorelDRAW software to produce counterfeit Aadhaar cards, voter IDs, birth certificates, and educational marksheets for as little as Rs 1,500 per document. For fake bank statements and rent agreements, Jain engaged Mohammad Junaid alias Sonu from Shahdara.
Once the passports were processed and dispatched to post offices, Jain and his associates bypassed the standard delivery protocol. Instead of waiting for postmen to deliver them, they would personally collect the passports from post offices by presenting forged Aadhaar cards of the applicants.
Gangsters Exploit the Network to Flee Abroad
The racket was exposed in December 2024 following a tip-off to the Haryana STF about Ankit Narwal, an aide of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. Narwal had obtained a passport using a fake Delhi address and was planning to flee the country. His arrest on December 14, 2024, in Sonipat led to the unravelling of the entire network.
Investigators found that several notorious gangsters had exploited this network. Sunil Singh alias Sardhania from Sonipat, involved in the shooting of singer Rahul Yadav alias Fazilpuria, secured a passport on March 11, 2024, from the Delhi RPO and fled to Dubai. Similarly, Kunal Joon of the Rahul Baba gang, wanted in over 15 cases, used a fraudulently obtained passport to escape to Dubai and later to Almaty, Kazakhstan, before being deported back to India in April this year.
Another fugitive, Sachin Sharma from Yamunanagar, an accused in around 20 criminal cases, also used this network to get his passport on February 27, 2023. The police also discovered that 12 women had obtained passports through the same illicit channel.
Systemic Weaknesses and Police Action
A senior police officer pointed out that the relaxation of passport verification norms in December 2016 has made the system vulnerable to exploitation. The old rule required verification of all addresses where an applicant lived in the preceding five years and checks of village crime records. The revised norm only requires disclosure of the address from the year before the application, making it easier for criminals to conceal their past.
So far, the police have arrested the key players: master agent Bijender Kumar Jain, forger Sunny Kumar (from whose computer three folders containing passport details were recovered), and Mohammad Junaid. The implicated Delhi Police SI is also facing legal action. The geographical breakdown of the 77 revoked passports is: 46 from Delhi RPO, 10 from Chandigarh, 6 each from Ghaziabad and Dehradun, 5 from Amritsar, 2 each from Bareilly and Lucknow.
