New teams to speed up Passport Act cases booked at Tiruchi airport

Eight teams to be assigned the job of probing the 'Under Investigation' cases expeditiously and filing charge-sheets as early as possible.

Passport Act cases booked by the Tiruchi airport police and languishing in the ‘under investigation’ (UI) stage would now be probed by newly formed police teams comprising of personnel serving in the central, south, and north zones.

The existing special teams of the city police entrusted with the task of investigating the pending Passport Act cases have been reconstituted. Eight teams would be assigned the job of probing the UI cases expeditiously and filing charge-sheets as early as possible. Transfers, routine duties and the need to travel long distances as part of probe hampered invsetigation by existing city police teams, police sources said.

A majority of the accused caught at Tiruchi airport in connection with Passport Act cases originally hail from other districts. On a direction from the office of the Director-General of Police recently, the eight new teams would probe nearly 400 pending Passport Act cases. Of them, four teams are from the Central Zone, encompassing eight districts, three teams from the south zone, and one from the north zone.

Each team, headed by an Inspector, would be spared from routine duties to enable them to concentrate on the cases. Two teams from the south zone – one from Tirunelveli range and another from Ramanathapuram range — which reported a few days ago in Tiruchi have begun work after receiving the case diaries pertaining to the passport act cases, sources said.

Personnel forming a part of the new teams would be sent back to their respective units once they accomplish the task.

The cases were booked by the airport police on complaints lodged by the immigration authorities at the Tiruchi airport following detection of offences committed by air travellers.

The nature of offences pertained to obtaining passport through fraudulent means or impersonation or photo substitution in the travel document. In a majority of the cases, the passports were found to have been obtained by submitting fake documents or giving fake names and bogus address, say the sources.