A passport applicant from Ekbalpore was caught submitting an alleged fake birth certificate with the application. He was arrested on Saturday.

According to police, Badal Sahani had applied for a passport and submitted his identity documents for police verification.

According to the new rule, the police send all identity documents to the respective document-issuing agencies for an authenticity check.

The birth certificate that Sahani had submitted was sent to the South 24-Parganas district administration for verification and was found to be forged.

“The birth certificate that Sahani had submitted with his passport application was issued by Gosaba’s Pathankhali gram panchayat in South 24-Parganas. On verification, it was found that the document was forged,” said an officer of the security control office, the wing of Kolkata Police that carries out the verification process of documents submitted by passport applicants in Calcutta.

Sources said an employee of the gram panchayat was found to have been allegedly involved and was arrested by Gosaba police recently.

Several similar cases have been reported in Calcutta in where applicants are getting booked for submitting fake birth certificates.

Recently, a resident of Garden Reach was arrested for submitting an allegedly fake birth certificate, which bore the stamp of a gram panchayat in Gosaba. That, too, was found to be fake.

Another such case has been reported where another Garden Reach resident had submitted a birth certificate issued from Tamluk in East Midnapore, which was found to be forged. An FIR has been drawn against this applicant.

The process of document verification has been turned more stringent since Kolkata Police busted a fake passport racket where at least 120 Bangladeshi nationals had obtained Indian passports with the help of fake identity documents prepared in Bengal.

The police have charge-sheeted 130 persons in that case, including 120 Bangladeshi nationals, a majority of whom have fled abroad using Indian passports.

According to regional passport office sources, earlier, passports would be issued within one to two weeks of an interview at the passport seva kendra. Now, it takes close to a month on average.

The process, according to the police, was started to make the verification process “foolproof.” It has considerably increased the time taken for the clearance.