Move on to save DIP official

Even though two probe bodies found four officials of DIP guilty of issuing over 100 government-employee passports based on fake certificates, a section of home ministry officials are now trying to save one of them from punishment.

Sources said many people left the country with those passports posing as Bangladesh government officials.

According to the first investigation committee report in May, Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) Director Munshi Muyeed Ekram, Assistant Director SM Shahjahan and senior assistants Shahjahan Miah and M Saiful Islam had issued the passports with fake No Objection Certificates (NOCs).

They were all suspended.

The probe committee, formed by the home ministry, was led by the then DIP director, now additional director general of DIP, Selina Banu.

Before Selina could submit the report, influential quarters at the DIP and the ministry then made moves to protect Muyeed and Selina was replaced by Atiqul Haque, a joint secretary of the ministry.

Another probe was launched with alleged intentions to cover up the director's involvement, according to DIP and home ministry officials.

This committee completed its investigation in only four days and submitted its report to the DIP chief on June 10, the sources said, adding that this probe “found” evidence of forgery in the issuance of only four official passports and claimed that the other three officials were directly involved in the scam, not Muyeed.

The applications for the passports with the fake certificates had conveniently enough gone missing from the DIP, the sources said.

A third probe committee, albeit internal, formed in July and led by DIP Director Shihab Uddin Khan found that at least 170 government employee passports were issued with fake NOCs by Muyeed and stated that issuance of government passports through illegal means had contributed to human trafficking. 

The committee also observed that the massive forgery was possible due to serious mismanagement and dominance of brokers at the Agargaon passport office.

Although the committee submitted its report to the DIP Director General NM Zeaul Alam, he is yet to send it to the home ministry for further procedure.

The suspended director Muyeed yesterday appeared before the senior secretary of the ministry for a hearing and gave his statement about the allegations against him.

Senior Secretary Mozammel Haque Khan of the ministry said the director would not be spared if he was directly involved. “We are investigating against the DIP official. We took the issue seriously,” he told The Daily Star.

Turkey informed the Bangladesh foreign ministry in April that it had detained three Bangladeshis who were carrying the Bangladesh government employees' passports even though they were not government employees.