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PESHAWAR, Feb 7: Two thousand blank Pakistani passports were stolen from the post office at railway station, Peshawar Cantonment, sources in police department disclosed here on Thursday.
They said that on Jan 30 a mail guard of the railway station post office, Aqil Mir, received 6,000 blank passports in six boxes, which was sent by the Security Printing Press, Karachi, by Khyber Mail. On the next morning when he was relinquishing his charge to his colleague, two boxes containing 2,000 passports were found missing from the godown where he kept them the whole night, they said, adding that the robber neither broken the door nor the lock.
Taking immediate action, Pakistan Railways Police, arrested Aqil Mir and on-duty sorter of the post office, Mohammad Asim. The railway police remanded both the suspects for two days and later sent them to the central jail, Peshawar. No clue to the theft was found during the remand, sources said.
They opined that an international gang dealing with travel agents were involved in the crime, adding that all the investigating agencies had started probe but all of them were still clueless.
An official of the Peshawar Passport Office, requesting anonymity, expressed his concern that there must be an international gang which would use these passports to send illegal aliens abroad. “The robbers can also use these stolen passports in other countries as all the concerned agencies were given their numbers for strict vigilance,” he added.
He said that the weight of 1,000 passports box was 41 kilograms and it was very difficult to take away two boxes by a single person.
He said that the worth of these stolen passports were about Rs 40 million in black market as some criminals in the guise of travel agents sell one passport for at least Rs 20,000 to Afghans and other countries’ nationals living in Pakistan illegally.
The General Post Office (GPO) Peshawar has taken departmental action and suspended five of its officials including superintended Jamshed Khan for showing inefficiency, sources added.
