‘Gross anomalies detected at Passport office,Intelligence’

“There is some person both at RPO and LIU,who was involved in issuance of passport to Ali,and those who helped him knew the system of both the offices very well,” Jain said.

Stating that the matter is very serious,the Additional DGP said that ATS team was investigating all the 27 files,of which eight have been traced so far,whose report was sent by LIU on June 9,2005. Ali’s file was among these 27 files.

“We are also contemplating to interrogate Ali,who was arrested in New Delhi,as to how he procured his passport and those who helped him,” Jain said adding that this was necessary for making fool-proof arrangement at all the three passport offices in the state at Bareilly,Ghaziabad and Lucknow.

Hinting that probe could take some time,Additional Director General AK Jain said that the ATS team was also focusing on hand writing and would match it with the employees,if needed.

The process of verifying the addresses mentioned in all the 27 files was underway and a possibility that some more cases of issuance of passports on fake addresses might be detected,Jain said.

About the functioning of the Local Intelligence Unit,which is party of state police,the Additional DGP said,”No record of these 27 files were found in the LIU office and it’s record keeping was found to be worse.”

On Tuesday,Jain had said that the LIU report attached to the file of Pakistani national at the passport office was fake and no such report was dispatched on June nine.

Two men,suspected to have helped Ali in procuring the passport and driving licence using forged documents,were arrested by the Anti-Terrorist Squad of the Uttar Pradesh Police here on November 17.

Ali,who the police say hails from Karachi,was caught at Delhi’s IGI airport on Saturday,while trying to board a flight to Damman in Saudi Arabia allegedly using the fake passport he procured from Lucknow,where he stayed between 2005 and 2006.