No clue yet to 300 missing diplomatic passports

By IANS

New Delhi : Four days after the reported loss of 300 blank diplomatic passports from the capital's domestic airport, investigating agencies have failed to trace the baggage in which these had arrived.


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"We are interrogating people but no suspect has been identified yet. Investigations are very much on and after verifying the details from Nashik printing press, we would make arrests". Joint Commissioner of Police Aditya Arya told IANS.

"Our team, which has gone to Nashik has not given any feedback yet. We are waiting for the report. Further action would be taken as per the report," he added.

According to another investigating official who talked to IANS on the condition of anonymity: "We have no clue about the parcel or baggage, which contained diplomatic passports. We are making efforts to gather as much intelligence to search it,"

"We don't even know, when and who brought these passports to Delhi," the official added.

He said that the matter is of high concern and a joint investigation with intelligence agencies is underway. "We believe that passports would be recovered soon."

The matter came to light May 24 when over 100 blank diplomatic passports were found in a garbage heap and 84 more in a water tank in the airport premises.Following this Delhi Police registered a case of theft and launched an extensive probe along with the Intelligence Bureau.

Police said the consignment, meant for the Ministry of External Affairs, originally contained 500 blank diplomatic passports that were to be sent to various Indian missions and embassies abroad. A total of 306 such passports remain untraced.

The recovery of passports has left the government in a fix since the blank passports could be misused.

Along with the Intelligence Bureau sleuths, police have questioned over 150 people including some senior airport officials as well as some policemen posted at the Palam Airport police station.

Police suspect the consignment might have caught the attention of some airport employees owing to the careful packaging of the passports.

Thinking that the consignment from the Nashik press might contain currency notes, some unscrupulous employee might have tampered with the packaging and might have dumped it somewhere on finding passports in it, according to a police official.

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