Mumbai: The Sahar police on Thursday arrested six women from Andhra Pradesh for allegedly attempting to travel from Mumbai to Muscat using tampered passports. They were produced before a court on Friday and sent to judicial custody. The authorities found that details on their passports had been erased so they could travel abroad on tourist visas.
Upon inquiry, it was found that they intended to travel to Kuwait to work as house helpers. They had approached an agent who provided them with tampered visas for Kuwait. They have been identified as Venkata Laxmi Ullithula, 30; Khadeerunnisa Shaikh, 32; Munemma Sunkara, 37; Rubina Syed, 33; Kumari Tellakula, 33; and Kalyani Engisetti, 32.
According to the FIR, on November 21, at 5.30pm, all six women arrived at Mumbai International Airport intending to board Air India flight IX-235. The women submitted their passports and boarding passes at the immigration counter. Officers discovered that all six passports had ECR (Emigration Check Required) status. Suspicion was raised when they noticed tampering on the passports, including erased pages and stamps.
Since POE (Protector of Emigrants) clearance is mandatory for flyers with ECR status traveling to Kuwait, the accused sought to bypass this process. The agent erased the Kuwait visa stamps from their passports using chemicals and issued them tourist visas along with flight tickets from Mumbai to Muscat.
A complaint was filed with the Sahar police, who have booked the travellers under relevant sections, including Section 12 (offenses and penalties related to passports and travel documents) of the Passport Act and Section 318(4) (cheating and dishonesty) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
