E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, AUG 01 - Around 200 travel documents, considered as emergency passports, have been found missing from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) for the last two years. The officials came to know about it only last week when they started probing into some reported passport forgery cases.

On the recommendation of Home Ministry, MoFA issues travel documents to refugees, adopted children and stranded Nepalis.

As soon as the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police brought a notice that a racket has been involved in forging Nepali passports and obtaining travel documents in collusion with government employees, MoFA officials found that around 200 travel documents were missing from the ministry for the last two years. The ministry's record shows that among them some travel documents were sent to Nepali missions in Cairo and Bangkok, which were later found hoax. “Among the missing serial numbers, we came to know that some travel documents were issued from Kathmandu. How were the missing documents issued again from MoFA?” questioned an official. “So we have formed a committee to look into the matter,” said Foreign Secretary Madan Kumar Bhattarai. Following media reports that some Tibetans managed to obtain genuine Nepali passports and hundreds of travel documents had gone missing, MoFA on Friday formed a five-member panel to investigate passport misuse cases.

“We will cooperate with the Nepal Police's to probe the issue and will improve the system to check such irregularities. We can provide details of the pictures only after the probe committee submits its report,” MoFA spokesperson Durga Bhattarai said. MoFA officials were clueless whether it was due to administrative and procedural shortcomings or handiwork of racketeers in collusion with its officials. The police have collected required details from the ministry and investigating the issue independently.  

CIB on Tuesday night caught two Tibetan refugees bound to the US in possession of passports issued by the ministry while the police earlier caught three Tibetans who were about to board a plane to Turkey with Nepali passports from the Tribhuvan International Airport.

Posted on: 2011-08-01 09:17

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