Four Burmese held in fake passport racket

Hyderabad: Busting a local racket, South Zone police arrested four Myanmarese on a charge of illegally obtaining or trying to obtain Indian passport. Two of them have already got the passport using fake voter ID cards, Aadhaar cards and other documents while two others have applied for the passport.

Police officials have taken four local passport agents into custody on suspicion they were helping the Myanmarese.

The arrested people were identified as Mohammed Raees, Mohammed Azeem, Abdul Karim and Mohammed Saleem. They are Rohingya Muslims who migrated to the city as refugees following the violence in Myanmar in the past, and were trying to get the Indian passport to go to the Gulf countries for jobs.

“There is no terror angle to this case. All these people were trying to go to Saudi Arabia to find jobs there. To get Visa, they needed passport. How-ever, they being refugees here, they cannot get Indian passport,” said  South Zone DCP V. Satyanarayana.

“It appeared that local agents have taken huge sums from the refugees to procure fake ID cards and Aadhaar cards. We are now investigating how they got passed the police verification done,” said a senior cop from South Zone.

Police has information that two other Myanmar nationals had got Indian passport and they had left for Saudi Arabia. “After a probe, we will come to know how many more people have applied for passport illegally,” said an official.

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