DG State Police sends letter to MEA for changing rules

Kolkata: The Director General (DG) of the state police, Rajeev Kumar on Sunday informed that a letter was sent to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) requesting to change a certain set of rules regarding the police verification for issuing passports

He stated that from now on the police verification process for obtaining a passport will be looked after by the Superintendents of Police (SPs) in the districts and Deputy Commissioners (DCs) in the commissionerates, including Kolkata Police. On Sunday afternoon during a press conference at the Bhabani Bhavan, DG said that the verification of documents for issuing a passport is being done by the passport authorities. Police have no role in the entire process. While sharing the information, Kumar mentioned an office memorandum that was issued on October 26, 2018, from the passport division of the MEA which said the Police Verification Report (PVR) is confined only to the citizenship and criminality of the applicant.

It was also mentioned that the passport applications are being verified at the Passport Seva Kendras (PSK), thus police are not required to verify the identity and the document unless the police authorities are asked to reverify.

The memorandum states that police do not need to verify the address of the applicants or call them for signature on the PVR. Kumar informed that police have nothing to do with the verification. To plug the gaps, he wrote to MEA to change certain rules.

In the past one and a half months, several Bangladeshi nationals having Indian passports were arrested from across the state. In every case, the police have registered forgery cases. Kolkata Police has busted a racket that was arranging Indian passports for several ‘infiltrators’ using forged documents. So far police have arrested seven people, including the mastermind.