After facing embarrassment for providing security to the slain Chadha brothers Ponty and Hardeep, the Punjab police has been caught on the wrong foot once again for recommending the issuing of a passport to Mr Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, accused by the police of being a key conspirator in the Chadha brothers’ murders.
Interestingly, the Jalandhar passport office issued the passport to Mr Namdhari, a resident of Udham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand. The regional passport office in Jalandhar has now finally impounded Mr Namdhari’s passport for submitting wrong papers.
Namdhari, who is from Uttarakhand, applied for passport as a resident of Jania village in Jalandhar district in 2006. The police verification report suggested that Mr Namdhari is a resident of Jania village. The blunder of issuing a passport on the wrong address has embarrassed the passport office which now blames the local police. The Jalandhar passport authorities say it is matter of concern that a non-Punjab domicile person got the police verification process conducted in his favour.
The passport authorities have written to the Jalandhar police to take action on the submitting of a false police verification report. They are demanding an inquiry so that suitable action can be taken against the erring police officials. In even further embarrassment for the Punjab police, an Intelligence Bureau team had visited six months ago to enquire about Mr Namdhari’s antecedents. The IB team visited following a complaint received by the passport authorities from a resident of Uttarakhand who claimed Mr Namdhari had secured a passport on the basis of fake documents.