Security Agencies Investigate Post Office Passport Seva Kendras in Bengal
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Kolkata, Dec 18 (NationPress) Some employees of Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) located in border districts of West Bengal are currently under investigation by security and intelligence agencies for their involvement in the provision of fake Indian documents, including passports, to Bangladeshi infiltrators.
According to informed sources, the state police have initiated an inquiry following leads that suggest some contractual staff associated with these POPSKs, along with certain permanent employees of the Postal Department, are functioning as accomplices for these illegal operations in exchange for significant commissions.
Within the last 72 hours, law enforcement has apprehended four individuals linked to the counterfeit passport schemes, including two contractual employees of the Indian Postal Department affiliated with two of the POPSKs.
The two arrested individuals have been identified as Taraknath Sen and Deepak Mondal. Sen was taken into custody by the Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police, while Mondal was apprehended by officers from the coastal division of West Bengal Police.
Investigators have already discerned several recurring patterns in the operations of these rackets, which are involved in supplying counterfeit Indian identity documents to Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Most of these illegal operations are reported to be functioning from villages near districts that share international borders, both land and coastal, with Bangladesh. Recently, Selim Matabbar, a former member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was arrested at a hotel situated in the Park Street area of central Kolkata.
The police also seized a fake Indian passport from his belongings. Investigations indicated that after unlawfully crossing the borders, Matabbar secured his counterfeit Indian documents from a network operating in the Indo-Bangladesh bordering district of Nadia.
