ONE Josna Begum is in deep trouble as a duplicate passport is also in use in the same name and same information only changing the photo. Media report says, she is a migrant worker who returned from Jordan last year. She is now facing difficulties in getting her Machine Readable Passport (MRP), because some one else is possessing a passport bearing the same number. How another woman could secure a duplicate of her passport is a mystery since she was in Jordan at that time with her hand-written passport when someone made the duplicate MRP back in Bangladesh.
Josna Begum is now roaming around Passport Offices at Munshiganj and Dhaka for her MRP as she is under pressure to return to her workplace abroad. But officials at the Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) are busy investigating the case. They can give her the passport only after canceling the one issued to the fake woman. There is no doubt it is the work of a syndicate of passport brokers and recruiting agents. They are guided by a section of officials at Passport Offices across the country. This is not a single case; such forgery is quiet often reported.
Only last year existence of 170 fake official passports was reported issued in the name of civilians between November 2014 and April 2015. Turkish immigration officials at Istanbul airport at first detected such fake passports. The DIP has taken disciplinary actions against several passport officials who had either acted in connivance with the syndicate or neglected to check documents properly while syndicate members made their jobs.
But what is quite evident is that corruption and misuse of power are at work at all levels of the government, because dodging watchful official verifications can’t be so easy to issue so many official passports to civilians who are mainly job aspirants abroad. But bearing false passports is illegal in the first place and more so because it is dangerous both for original passport holders and the state in case the bearer becomes involved in criminal activities and militancy abroad. This is quite sensitive time. Migrant workers in most cases are rural folks. If they can manage fake passports with false information, then it is easier to do the same by someone in the cities.
We have warned time and again that illegal syndicate at around the Passport Offices must be eliminated to eliminate the risk of making false passports. One can see the crowd of agents at Agargaon Passport Office and similar view is also noticeable in the districts. Law enforcers and agents are working together in many cases to show that making a false passport is not so difficult. But we must say it can’t go longer.
