No passport sans cop visit to applicant’s address: Kolkata Police SoP
Times of India | 29 December 2024
12 Kolkata: No new passport will be issued or renewed without cops visiting the address of the applicant to verify the credentials submitted by them, states the latest SoP of Kolkata Police (KP). According to the guidelines, cops who would ask applicants to visit the police station for verification will face departmental action. If a person has cited address of a rented place, the SoP states that the same must be physically verified. Moreover, in such cases police station under whose jurisdiction the applicant's original address falls, must be informed with data collected from the original spot. The officer concerned must upload all documents of the applicant to a designated portal to ensure there is no discrepancy between the uploaded documents and the applicant's address coordinates.
KP commissioner Manoj Verma circulated the SoP at the crime meeting on Saturday. Verma claimed that the cops conducted a detailed study to plug possible loopholes during verification based on recent experiences. "We held detailed discussions with MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) and senior officers of the passport office. We reviewed each step taken by our officers during this verification. Each OC has been briefed on what steps we expect them to take at the local police station," said Verma. A cop, who attended the meeting, said "The updates on possible issues have to be shared with the seniors instead of verification officers sitting on them. We have been asked to pay special attention to whether the applicant for the passport has any pending criminal case against him or her." Sources said the recent fake passport probe highlighted how address discrepancies surfaced. "If necessary, it is suggested that an officer of assistant commissioner rank should visit the provided address during passport verification. At the same time, all information from the police station must be submitted to the passport office without any gaps," added the officer. At present, officers at each of the Kolkata Police stations and the security control are involved in police verification of passports. But most of the groundwork is done by the local police. For this purpose, there is one to three designated passport officers in each police station. The police have also introduced a user-friendly app that saves the passport office's time in liaising with the Security Control Organization (SCO) and the passport office. The entire police verification process has been decentralised and is conducted by the cops using mPassport Police Application.