A 50-year-old woman on a wheelchair started walking without help after being stopped at the airport while attempting to board a flight to New York with a forged passport and resident’s certificate.

Kamuben, from Kharoj village in Gujarat, was set to take the Lufthansa flight late on Sunday. Shortly after midnight, she arrived at the immigration counter in a wheelchair and produced the passport of Manjuben Kamubhai Patel, 65, and her US resident’s certificate.

Minor differences in appearance between the passenger and the photograph on the passport caught the eye of Calcutta police sub-inspector Angshuman Roy, posted at the immigration counter.

Suspicious, Roy felt that Kamuben was not physically challenged and was using the wheelchair to deflect attention and deceive the immigration officers.

“Please walk to the next room,” the sub-inspector suddenly instructed Kamuben, who instinctively stood up from the wheelchair and started walking.

By the time she realised her mistake, it was too late. Her game was up. She broke down and narrated her story.

“The woman was interrogated for 20 minutes. She said that she was travelling with a forged passport,” said Basab Talukdar, the deputy commissioner (security control) and foreigners’ regional registration officer in Calcutta.

According to Kamuben, a man she referred to as Mahesh Bhai approached her in her village and told her that if she paid him $1,200, he would get her a good job in the US. Kamuben coughed up the money and bought the passport and resident’s certificate from him.

Leaving behind her husband Vishnu Bhai and son Pradip in the village, she was leaving for New York to work as a maid. Mahesh had told her she would be received in New York by her employer Baldev Singh.

Talukdar said the immigration officers gave Kamuben’s passport a closer look because it is unusual for a Gujarat resident to fly to New York from Calcutta.

“She tried to do it because she thought that the immigration officers here did not know Gujarati and would not be able to catch her,” he said.

Kamuben was handed over to airport police station on Monday morning.

Commissioner of police Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti gave sub-inspector Roy a pat on the back and Rs 2,000 as prize money for his alertness.