Army man battles to get passport renewed

Rachna Khaira

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Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 1

An Army man posted in Jammu and Kashmir has been running from pillar to post for over a month to get his passport renewed from the Regional Passport Office (RPO) in Jalandhar. He was shocked to find out that his passport had already been renewed and issued to another man in 2010 by the RPO in Amritsar.

Ravinder Singh, who hails from Kastiwal village in Batala, told The Tribune that his passport had expired in 2013. He said he could not get it renewed due to professional commitments.

He said, “I had lost my high school certificate in 2008 and got a duplicate one issued in May 2010. When I approached the Jalandhar RPO office last month, I was told that my passport had already been renewed and issued to some other person in May 2010 itself.”

He said while the renewed passport bore his name, date of birth and names of his parents, the address and the photograph on the passport were different. He said the RPO authorities had asked him to provide the fee receipt that he got while getting the copy of his high school certificate from the Punjab School Education Board.

“How can I produce a fee receipt that I got eight years ago?” questioned Ravinder.

He added that he even went to the Batala police to lodge an FIR but they refused to do so and instead asked him to approach the RPO office in Amritsar again.

Amritsar RPO Raj Kumar Bali said as there was no online passport “sewa” in 2008, someone might have managed to get a passport renewed on his name.

“Earlier, it was a common practice to target Army men for making forged passports. Agents in connivance with local police used to get forged passports made by clearing their police verification,” said Bali.

He said as the authorities used to paste photographs manually over the passport, there might be a possibility that someone might have taken out Ravinder’s photograph and pasted his own.

He said Ravinder might now have to wait for months to get his passport renewed as he would have to wait for the final report of the inquiry that would soon be initiated by his office. Feeling harassed and dejected, Ravinder returned to J&K on Sunday.