Pune man tears passport pages to hide Bangkok trips from family, arrested | Mumbai News – The Times of India
MUMBAI: A 51-year-old Pune resident was arrested on Sunday at Mumbai international airport on his return from a weeklong holiday in Indonesia for allegedly tearing out pages from his passport.
Sahar police’s investigation showed that he did this to hide evidence from his family of his four trips to Bangkok last year.
Wilfully damaging a passport is an offence under Passports Act, 1967. The man, V K Bhalerao, has also been booked under BNS Section 318 (4) (deceiving a person, or fraudulently or dishonestly inducing a person to deliver property).
Immigration officials detained Bhalerao during a routine check after they discovered pages were missing from his passport. “The officials found that pages 17/18 and 21-26 were missing,” said a Sahar police officer. The pages bore the immigration stamps for the Thailand trips, said assistant immigration officer Rajiv Kumar in his police complaint.
The police officer said Bhalerao initially refused to divulge the reason for tampering with the passport. This made Kumar present him before the wing incharge, Vilas Vadnere, and duty officer Vijay Kumar Yadav. “Sustained questioning helped the immigration officials learn the truth that he tore the pages out to hide his Bangkok trips from his family,” said the police officer.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- Vikram K. Bhalerao, a 51-year-old resident of Pune, was arrested at Mumbai international airport for allegedly tearing pages from his passport to conceal his travel history.
- The investigation revealed that Bhalerao had taken four trips to Bangkok in the previous year, which he attempted to hide from his family by damaging pages that contained immigration stamps.
- Bhalerao faces charges under the Passports Act of 1967 and Section 318 (4) for deceiving others and fraudulently inducing them to deliver property.
