A representational photo of police verifying passport-related documents.
| Photo Credit: K.V.S. Giri
The Vital police, on December 22, arrested Pradeep, a constable, on the charge of forging passport verification documents to help a West Bengal native to obtain a passport.
According to Dakshina Kannada District Police, Shakti Das, son of Suguna Das, presently residing in Vitla Kasaba, had applied for a passport. His application had come for police verification in February 2025 to Vital Police Station. Kasaba beat constable Sabu Mirji noticed that the address proof submitted by the applicant did not tally with the place of residence. Accordingly, the beat constable did not recommend the application.
When Sabu Mirji, who is also the assistant station writer, was updating the station register on December 17, he found that Shakti Das had again applied for a passport, and the application was assigned to his metal number. Upon calling the mobile number mentioned in the new application, the phone was answered by K. Pradeep, a resident of Apperipade in Vitla.
K. Pradeep told Sabu Mirji that constable Pradeep had recommended the passport application of Shakti Das.
When confronted, constable Pradeep reportedly admitted to forging the signature of Sabu Mirji and getting a senior officer’s recommendation to issue the police clearance certificate. He had destroyed the verification documents to conceal the forgery.
Based on a complaint by Sabu Mirji, police registered cases against Pradeep and Shakti Das under provisions of Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita for the offences of creating false documents for cheating, forging a public register, dishonest misuse of property entrusted with someone, and causing disappearance of evidence.
Pradeep was produced before the jurisdictional magistrate who remanded him to judicial custody. Police are searching for Shakti Das.
Published – December 23, 2025 04:24 pm IST
