19 travel agents, 3 cops among 25 convicted in Moga passport scam

MOGA : A local court on Wednesday convicted 25 persons — including 19 travel agents and three cops — in the 2008 Moga passport scam.

Additional chief judicial magistrate Deepti Gupta sentenced all accused, including a postman, a clerk of birth and death certificate office and a passport office employee, to three- year imprisonment and imposed Rs 11, 000 fine each.

The police had unearthed the scam wherein the accused allegedly secured more than 400 passports based on forged documents in Moga with the connivance of officials of the regional passport office though the applicants belonged to other districts.

Additional district attorney Lakhvir Singh said of 69 accused who faced the trial, 44 were acquitted by the court. Additional public prosecutor Amandeep Prinja said head constables Jaswinder Pal Singh, Ranjit Singh and Gurdial Singh were the main conspirators. While Balwinder Singh, a clerk in birth and death certificate office in Moga, prepared fake documents, Didar Singh, an employee at the regional passport office in Chandigarh, took care of formalities at the main office. Postman Ranjit Singh delivered passports to the applicants with fake addresses.

The police had sent a list of the accused to all airports in the country following which many of them were caught at Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Amritsar airports.