PESHAWAR, Sept 3: The immigration police at Peshawar airport on Sunday arrested a man who had landed here from Abu Dhabi on a forged machine-readable passport, said a senior official.

It was the first case of a traveller being caught with a machine-readable passport, which had been tampered with, at Peshawar international airport, said Inamullah Gandapur, assistant director, immigration, Federal Investigation Agency.

He said that the passenger presented passport No AA-1494331 issued in the name of Mr Attaullah, a resident of Swat, at the immigration counter after arriving from Abu Dhabi. The duty official Saima Jeelani, on suspicion handed over the passenger to the immigration team for questioning.

During interrogation, he said his name was Dost Mohammad, a resident of Bannu. He confessed that he had paid Rs90,000 to a travel agent in his city for preparing his travel documents.

Mr Gandapur said that the accused had opened lamination sheet on one page of the passport and replaced the photograph.

It was very difficult to detect such type of tampering with the passport, the official said.

The accused had travelled on this passport from Karachi to Abu Dhabi on June 14.

Mr Gandapur said that the accused had been sent to the FIA passport circle for further interrogation.

PESCO: The Board of Directors of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) has approved the budget for the current fiscal year. The 35th Board Of Directors meeting was held under the chairmanship of Jamshed Savul at WAPDA House Peshawar.