Lawmakers tampered with passports to hide scam

KATHMANDU, March 22: Investigations have revealed that lawmakers Gayatri Shah and BP Yadav freely tampered with their red passports in a bid to hide a high-profile scam involving a potentially handsome deal with racketeers.

A slew of tamperings with the red passports have eventually backfired on the CA members, with investigating agencies now preparing to use these as evidence against them during prosecutions expected to begin very soon if here is no ´immovable obstacle´.
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The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on Monday collected the findings of a police probe into the case. Officials claimed that the findings were enough for immediately detaining and taking action the Constituent Assembly (CA) members.

According to sources, Shah is found to have tampered with her red passport in eight different ways, including removal of her photo in the visa for the UK and also removal of the departure sticker.

“She first replaced her photo with that of the person to be trafficked. After the passport was returned to her, she glued her own photo back on,” CIAA sources said.

Investigators had recovered from the immigration office at Tribhuvan International Airport copies of the departure stickers pasted on both lawmakers´ passports. “They had removed the stickers in an attempt to show that they had not used the visas,” officials said.

Most interestingly, Yadav had removed the sticker from his passport and replaced it with the Australian visa sticker. “It seemed to be a desperate move,” said an official involved in investigations.

Nepal Police forensic lab has also examined the red passports to help the probe team find out the tampered details.

As pressure mounted, Shah showed up at the CIAA for questioning on Sunday even though she had initially tried to defy the anti-graft body´s directive. “She was questioned over these very facts,” said officials.

Meanwhile, investigative officials have been looking for additional facts in connection with red passport misuse by another lawmaker, Shivapujan Yadav. According to Australian immigration records, Yadav has not returned to Nepal after landing in that country in December.

“It is proved that somebody was trafficked to Australia using Yadav´s red passport,” officials said. “But we need some other significant facts to fully substantiate the case.” CIAA has not yet brought Yadav under investigations.

The lid came off the scam after two persons carrying the red passports belonging to Shah and Yadav were turned back from Abu Dhabi last December while they were heading for Australia.

Five lawmakers including Shah, Yadav and Raya are implicated in the scam. Two others--Ramvadevi and Salma Khatun of Madhes People´s Rights Forum--are known to have acquired only visa notes from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the intent of misusing their red passports.

Investigations had not gone smoothly in the initial phase due to political pressure.

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