Passport Scam: Fake Nationalities, Real Passports

भिडियो हेर्न तलको बक्सभित्र किल्क गर्नुहोस

KATHMANDU: Three months after the Nepal government scrapped a passport deal with India and awarded it to a French company, the growing controversy over the issue has made India express fresh concern about the threat insecure Nepali passports pose to India’s security.

The Indian Embassy in Kathmandu this week sent a note verbale to Nepal’s ministry of foreign affairs, saying it was concerned that the security features in the new Nepali passports could be diluted.
The letter said the Indian Embassy’s attention had been drawn to recent reports in the Nepali media expressing concern from different quarters on the issue.

Earlier this year, India had proposed that the contract for printing 4 million machine-readable Nepali passports be awarded to its state-owned Security Printing and Minting Corporation India Ltd.

New Delhi was ready to offer the contract at rock-bottom rates as its primary concern about Nepali passports is their effect on India’s security.

Following a bilateral treaty of peace and friendship signed in 1950, Nepalis don’t need a visa to travel to and stay in India and vice-versa.

A Nepali passport holder can open bank accounts in India, hold jobs without employment permits and buy property.

The embassy letter to the foreign ministry said that its attention was drawn to “an unusually high incidence of loss of Nepali passports and frequent reports of misuse of Nepali passports by non-Nepali citizens”.

According to the Indian ambassador to Nepal, Rakesh Sood, nearly 20 people arrested for terrorist activities in India last year came through Nepal and it is feared they used forged Nepali passports.