Failing to provide details about her husband and in-laws, Banshi confessed that it was a “marriage of convenience to obtain dependent UK visa”.
The Bureau of Immigration at the Ahmedabad airport filed two complaints at the Airport police station against two passengers who were due to fly abroad, leading to their arrests on Tuesday and Wednesday, after it was detected that they were travelling on forged passports.
Passengers Jagat Dalami (48), who was arrested on Wednesday, and Banshi Savaniya (22), arrested on Tuesday, are in the custody of the Special Operations Group (SOG). Airport police Inspector S G Khambaliya said the probe has been handed over to the SOG following registration of FIRs on June 25 and on Wednesday. The accused have been booked under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 465, 467, 468 (forgery) and 471 (using a forged record as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code as well as Section 12 (2) (punishment for forging passport) of the Passports Act.
According to the complaints, on June 25, Savaniya had approached the immigration departure gate, intending to leave for London in an Air India flight with a standard D-visa. With her passport reflecting her name as Banshi Modhvadiya, she claimed that she was issued the visa, as her husband Brijesh Tanded was a Portuguese national. However, upon scrutiny of documents of her travel and parentage, the immigration officer noticed that the marriage certificate of her parents was issued only recently at a gram panchayat at Umbergaon in Valsad.
Failing to provide details about her husband and in-laws, Banshi confessed that it was a “marriage of convenience to obtain dependent UK visa”. She admitted that she obtained the passport with an assumed identity and identified herself as Banshi Savaniya, a resident of Vadodara, the complaint stated.
The Bureau of Immigration detected a second fraud later in the day when Dalami approached the immigration departure gate headed for Abu Dhabi in an Indigo flight on a tourist visa. While his passport, where his name was stated as Haryana resident Suraj Singh, and the passport issued from Chandigarh reflected his age as 36 years, an immigration counter officer was doubtful of the same. Following interrogation, Dalami purportedly confessed to his real identity as Jagat Dalami, a Nepalese citizen with a Nepalese passport. He claimed that he had obtained an Indian passport “on the basis of fraudulently obtained assumed identity, ie Aadhaar card”, the complaint noted.