Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday said that four Kolkata regional passport office (RPO) employees have been arrested in connection with the agency’s drive against a fake passport racket in West Bengal and Sikkim.
Arrested persons, who have been identified as senior passport assistants Uttam Kumar Bhairon, Nisith Baran Saha, and Debasish Bhattacharya, and stenographer Manish Kumar Gupta, were produced before a court in Gangtok on October 21, and are currently in CBI custody till October 25.
According to the agency, a total of 24 persons have been named in the FIR, which includes these four persons.
Two passport officers and four agents involved in the fake passport racket were earlier arrested by the CBI in this matter.
The CBI suspects that the tentacles of this racket might not be restricted within the passport department, but can be spread in other departments of the Union and state governments as well.
The agency has already got a lead and uncovered links to an international women trafficking racket behind this scam.
The central agency has secured some definite clues about this link following the arrest of a person named Varun Singh Rathor from Naxalbari in the Darjeeling district a few days back.
The suspicion of the CBI deepened as the majority of the fake passports recovered from Rathor were those of women hailing from North Bengal and adjacent Sikkim.
With inputs from IANS