Overview
- Three members of a carpenter’s family in Chakdaha were detained and taken to the ED’s Kolkata office for questioning in the fake passport case.
- Officers seized passports along with bank and passport-related documents and began examining travel histories, bank transactions and mobile phones.
- A separate ED team searched an online passport application centre near the Passport Seva Kendra in Kolkata’s Ruby area.
- Biplab Sarkar’s name surfaced during questioning of Indubhushan Halder, arrested on October 13 for allegedly facilitating Indian identity documents for foreigners, with investigators citing hundreds of suspect applications from his cyber cafe.
- The probe follows the April arrest of Pakistani national Azad Hussain for allegedly arranging Indian IDs for Bangladeshi nationals, with an ED PMLA charge sheet filed on June 13 and an earlier state police filing naming 130 accused.