PUNE, 19 April 2006 — In a severe jolt to the image of the demoralized Maharashtra police, eight senior police officers of the ranks of police inspectors were suspended from services last night by state director general of police Dr. Parvender Singh Pasricha following a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) report about their alleged involvement in the fake visa scam.
Three of the officers Uttam More, Ashok Khandare and Dnyaneshwar Katkar are from the Foreigners Registration Branch of city police, Rafiq Raje and R.H. Patil are from Pune Rural, Prakash Sawant from State Intelligence Department, Bombay, Vithal Harihar from Satara and Shirish Sasane from Ratnagiri district.
The suspended officers were posted at the Foreigner’s Registration Branch of the Pune and Pune Rural Police and had allegedly extended tourist visas of foreigners.
They were from Iran, Sudan, Bahrain and other Gulf countries for a period of five years without any authority. They were also alleged to have connived with foreigners, travel agents and some officials of the home department in Bombay. The CID which is investigating the scam had discovered that the officials used to allegedly extend visas through some constables who were in cahoots with the travel agents. During investigations it was also revealed that the foreigners had got their visas extended on fake addresses, which were not verified by the police. Soon after the scam was exposed in 2004, the suspended police officials apprehending arrest then, had obtained anticipatory bail.
The visa scam came to light after the then deputy commissioner of police, Dr. Sukhwinder Singh of the special branch in Pune, was informed by the Foreigners Registration Officer of Hyderabad of his suspicion about the authenticity of visa scam of a foreign student seeking admission there. After preliminary investigations, the Hyderabad police transferred the case to Pune police and a case was registered at the Chatursinghi police station in August 2004, and the first police official to be arrested was a very influential police officer Sushil Kadam, of the Pune Rural Foreigners Registration Office. The visa scam, first rampant in Pune City jurisdiction was shifted to the Pune Rural police.
Considering the wide scope of investigations, the visa scam was then transferred over to the state CID, which has so far arrested more than 30 people including policemen, home department officials, travel agents and foreigners. The suspended police officials are likely to be arrested and more heads will roll in the coming days, said a police source. The large suspension of police officials generated shock wavs and jitters in the state police force
