The Kolkata police detective department arrested a 42-year-old man, Moktar Alam, from his Duttapukur residence in North 24 parganas district early Wednesday morning in the fake passport case.

According to police sources, documents such as fake PAN cards, voter IDs , apart from passbooks of and debit cards of people have been seized from his possession.

Alam was produced in the Alipore Court on Wednesday, and has been remanded to police custody till January 8.

The Chief Public Prosecutor Sourin Ghoshal submitted to court that, “this individual was bringing people from Bangladesh and providing them fake documents such as voter IDs and sending them to European countries. For further investigation more interrogation is required.”

Alam was previously arrested by Chuchura Police Station in a similar case in 2021, but was later released on bail.

Last week, the Kolkata Police arrested five persons for allegedly running a fake passport racket and selling forged documents for nearly Rupees 2 to 5 lakh each.

According to police sources, the syndicate had illegally issued at least 73 fake Indian passports to infiltrators, particularly Bangladeshi citizens, using forged documents.