A police constable posted in Moradabad district was arrested in connection with the forgery of documents on the basis of which a passport was prepared for gangster Deepak Pahal, alias Boxer, who was nabbed by the Delhi Police from Mexico’s Cancum city and brought to India on Monday. The constable, Ajit Singh, who has been suspended, was sent to judicial custody after he was produced in a local court. The police are now looking for another accused involved in the forgery, officials said. The police in Moradabad were informed by their Delhi counterparts that one of the passports recovered from Pahal was in the name of one Ravi Antil with address shown as Gopalpur Natha Nagla village under the Chhajlet police station. Deepak was allegedly using that passport for travelling. It was found in the preliminary inquiry that police verification of the address was conducted by constable Ajit Singh in December 2022 and its report was prepared. A case was lodged against Deepak Pahal under section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, said a police officer. The police have also invoked the Passport Act against the accused. “Ajit did not visit the spot for verification and approved it after seeing the documents. We are now looking for another accused who helped the gangster get passport on forged documents,” said Moradabad Circle Officer Ganesh Kumar. The police are also planning to look into other cases in which constable Ajit Singh had conducted passport verification. “We found that a local tout, who also claims to be a lawyer helped the gangster get the passport. As part of the inquiry, we are also probing other cases in which the constable provided wrong verification,” the Circle Officer said.
