Hyderabad: Police are now probing the possibility of officials of government departments being involved in the fake passport scam.
"I approached the Regional Passport Officer four times to get passports for myself and my children, but nothing was done. But when the same applications were given to broker Rasheed it was done in 20 days. That too they made fake passports," said TRS MLA Kasipeta Lingaiah.
This may well be the dissident TRS legislator attempting to shift the goalpost after his arrest.
But the Police is not closing its eyes to the possibility – especially considering that Hyderabad's seen several instances in the last few years, where officials have been hauled up in fake passport cases.
Sources say the police will question all officials connected with issuing passports to legislators Kasipeti Lingaiah and Soyam Bapu Rao.
The role of Special Branch officials who do physical verification of applicants will also be probed.
"If there's any lapse on the part of the officials we'll take action," Hyderabad City Police Commissioner Balwinder Singh.
"These kinds of crimes do take place in all systems and all institutions. So, when such things take place we investigate, how this happened and appropriately the people who are responsible for such lapses will be punished," said Hyderabad Regional Passport Officer B Bala Bhaskar.
Hyderabad Police say that it would be able to expose the entire network once they get the custody of key accused Rasheed which is likely to happen on Monday.
They have already started preparing the list of officials, especially from the passport office and the Special Branch, to be questioned about this racket.
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