Six held for tampering with passports, forging stamps

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Six persons, including an IELTS coach, were arrested in connection with issuance of fake immigration stamps and 62 passports and 28 fake stamps were seized, police said Sunday.

Those arrested have been identified as Saurav, an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) coach, Vicky, a herbal products businessman and two agents Sachin Kumar and Mukesh Goyal, they said.

A couple, Ravinder Singh and his wife Sunita Kumari, who wanted to travel to Canada, were also arrested for getting the forged immigration stamp from the agents, police said.

On the intervening night of March 1 and 2, a complaint was received about suspected fake and forged Indian immigration stamp in respect of two Indian nationals namely Sunita Kumari and Ravinder Singh who were seeking departure to Canada on the strength of Canadian visit visa by Air Canada, Sanjay Bhatia, Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport), said.

During scrutiny of their travel documents, it was found that there was no travel history of the couple in the immigration passenger log and the Indian immigration stamps affixed on their passports were fake and forged, he said.

Investigations, Bhatia said, revealed that Kumari and Singh wanted to go and settle down in Canada. They approached their friend Shyam who introduced them to an agent named Vicky, who runs a shop in Kurukshetra in Haryana, he added.

Vicky took Rs 6 lakh from them on the pretext of arranging Canadian visas. He arranged for another agent, Sachin Kumar, who took the couple to Chandigarh and arranged for their visa. The agent arranged for fake immigration stamps for them to make them look like frequent travellers, the DCP said.

He said Vicky during questioning disclosed that it was Kumar who had procured the fake immigration stamps and placed the same on the passports.

Agent Kumar was arrested in this regard on March 27, Bhatia said.

Kumar disclosed that he gave the passports of Singh and his wife to one Saurav who got the forged immigration stamp affixed on passports to make them look frequent travellers. Saurav, who runs an office in Kurukshetra, was also arrested in this regard on March 29, the DCP said.

After him, Goyal was arrested and he revealed that till date he had prepared 20-25 fake immigration and bank stamps for Saurav and his associates, he said.

Vicky used to induce people on the pretext of arranging visas and sending them abroad. For which he arranged meetings of the clients with Kumar, Bhatia added.

Kumar, who was in touch with various agents in Mohali and Kurukshetra, used to take passports of the clients on the pretext of preparing the file and through agent Saurav and others used to affix fake immigration stamps of various countries on the passports to create a fake travel history as this assisted in procuring a visa from the embassy concerned, police said.

Fake bank stamps were used by them to create fake bank account statements, they said.