The Sahar police have booked a 26-year-old Nepali national for allegedly attempting to travel with a fake Schengen visa to Greece. Risman Chaudhary aspired to settle in Europe and hence, he had illegally obtained the travel document, said the officials.
According to the FIR, Chaudhary arrived at the Mumbai airport on May 13. He was scheduled to travel to Doha and then fly to Greece. He submitted his passport and boarding pass for verification. Upon inspection, the immigration officer noticed the passport lacked standard security features and observed the visa paper to be of low quality. Growing suspicious, the officer handed him over to a senior official.
The authorities initiated an inquiry and examined the passport under a UV lamp. They found no security features on the passport and noted that the visa had poor-quality intaglio printing. The immigration officer then contacted the foreign consulate, which confirmed that the visa was not issued by the Greek authorities.
Probe revealed that Chaudhary wanted to settle in Europe and had approached an agent in Nepal, who helped him get the fake visa. He has been booked under the Passport Act as well as relevant sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
In a worrying trend, several people, mostly labourers, are trying to illegally fly to the Gulf in search of jobs. Last week, the Sahar police filed 14 FIRs against 18 people for allegedly attempting to travel to the Middle East using fake passports or visas. All of them were caught by the immigration officers at the airport. All of them were reportedly travelling to the Gulf for better job opportunities.
A source revealed that most of these individuals come from poor or labour-class backgrounds and a few of them are allegedly involved in criminal activities. According to the information, two cases each were filed on May 12 and 13, three on May 14, five on May 15, and one each on May 16 and 17.
