The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Multi-passport racket busted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Multi-passport racket busted

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, FEB. 22. Task Force officials on Tuesday busted what they called multi-passport racket with the arrest of six persons, including two employees of the Regional Passport Office, Hyderabad.

Two other accused, including a woman, were still at large, the Task Force DCP, M. Shiva Prasad, told a press conference.

The arrested passport office employees - Kottur Saivara Prasad (51) and Pilli Gopala Krishna (47) - allegedly helped a businessman, Boji Reddy Jagannatham (48), in getting four passports issued with different names.

His wife, Renuka, too, got two passports with different names.

While Jagannatham was arrested along with three agents - Hameeduddin Ahmed (60), Khaja Saleemuddin (37) and Andrew Johanson (51) - Renuka was absconding along with another agent, Srihari. As Jagannatham could not get a valid visa directly to America, he tried to reach there by initially going to Cyprus.

"After doing some odd jobs in Cyprus, he applied for a visa to go to America, but could not succeed," the DCP explained. Later, he allegedly approached the two passport office employees and the four private agents and succeeded in getting four passports with different names for him and two more for his wife.

Asked as to how he managed to get passports with different names, the Additional Commissioner of Police (Co-ordination), A.K. Khan, made no bones about the possible connivance of the city police special branch wing.

Special branch role

"Without the help of special branch employees concerned, the accused would not have managed to secure so many passports. Soon, they would be identified and arrested," he announced.

The arrests were made by the Task Force Inspector, Suhas Chaturvedi, and the Sub-Inspectors - S.R. Damodar Reddy, V. Umender, R. Ramana and S. Srinivasa Rao.

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