Post Office Passport Seva Kendras in Bengal under security agencies' scanner

Kolkata (The Uttam Hindu): Some employees of Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) in bordering districts of West Bengal were under the scanner of security and intelligence agencies in connection with arranging fake Indian documents, including passports, for Bangladeshi infiltrators. Sources aware of the development said that the state police have started an investigation based on certain clues that some contractual staff attached to such POPSKs and some permanent employees of the Postal Department are acting as aiding agents for such rackets against hefty commissions. Four people have been arrested in connection with fake passport rackets during the last 72 hours, out of which two are contractual staff with the Indian Postal Department and attached to two such POPSKs.

Two accused have been identified as Taraknath Sen and Deepak Mondal. While Sen was arrested by the sleuths of the Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police, Mondal was arrested by the cops of the coastal division of West Bengal Police. The investigating officials have already identified several common patterns in the functioning of these rackets involved in arranging fake Indian identity documents for the Bangladeshi infiltrators. Most of these rackets have been operating from villages adjacent to districts having international borders, both land and coastal, with Bangladesh. Recently, Selim Matabbar, a former associate of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was arrested at a hotel in the Park Street area in central Kolkata.The police also recovered a fake Indian passport from his possession. Investigation revealed that Matabbar after illegally crossing the borders managed to get his fake Indian documents from a racket operating from the Indo-Bangladesh bordering district of Nadia.