Police arrest dancer Vedika Shivkumar for obtaining passport by submitting fake home address proof
Police arrest dancer Vedika Shivkumar for obtaining passport by submitting fake home address proofu00a0
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Vedika Tilak Kumar Shivkumar (22), a professional dancer, became the second celebrity to be arrested for submitting forged residential proof to obtain a genuine passport. Shivkumar was remanded in police custody in connection with the fake passport scam registered at the Bund Garden police station.
Caught for faking it: Professional dancer Vedika Shivkumar was arrested
by the police in the passport scam. Shivkumar has been remanded in
police custodyPrior to Shivkumar's arrest, the city police had on Friday night arrested Jiya Ashok Chopra (22), a Mumbai-based model, and Arvind Rajendra Bhat (32), passport agent, in connection with the passport scam involving constable Digambar Laxman Ghorpade, who is in police custody for allegedly helping Sajid Batliwala (45), a Dawood Ibrahim aide, get a passport with a fake name and address.
Assistant Public Prosecutor Sanjay Wadhawane argued the residential proof and other documents submitted to procure a passport for Shivkumar were fake.
Advocate Shrikant Shivade, who represented Vedika, told the court that she was a victim of the passport racket. "Shivkumar needed a passport urgently, as she had to go abroad for a dance show. She had approached Bhatt for a passport, but was not aware of what happened later. We are cooperating with the police in their investigations," Shivade said.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cantonment Division) Mohammad Makandar, who is investigating the case, told the court that she travelled abroad on that passport after three months, hence there was no urgency. Makandar requested the court to grant six days of police custody of Shivkumar.
Shivkumar, a resident of Andheri, Mumbai, had reportedly paid Rs 50,000 for the passport. She had approached agent Bhatt as she was finding it difficult to arrange for documents required for obtaining passport from Mumbai. Bhatt further conspired with Pune-based passport agent Hariyani and others to arrange fake documents for her and later procured a passport for her, the police said.
Shivkumar's passport mentioned her address as B/702, DSK Apartment, 5 B J Road, Pune, where she never stayed, the police said.
The agents conspired with constable Ghorpade, now suspended, who was then attached to the passport section of the Bund Garden police station. Ghorpade was responsible for the verification process but cleared Shivkumar's passport documents without checking them.
The case Investigations so far have revealed that Ghorpade played a key role in issuing 67 genuine passports on forged documents. The passport racket came to light after the Mumbai police arrested Batliwala in December last year.
The Mumbai police recovered a passport from Batliwala's possession, which was issued after 'police clearance' was given by the Bund Garden police station. The police are now verifying 500 of the 4,582 passports issued during Ghorpade's two-year tenure at the police station.
Ghorpade and passport agent Inayatali Hariyani are in police custody until June 3.
Chopra and Bhat were produced in the Pune court on Saturday and have been remanded in police custody till May 31. The model procured her passport after forged documents including the school leaving certificate and fake address proof was submitted on her behalf.
The investigating officer said as all the documents bore Chopra's signature, so it is suspected she had knowledge that bogus documents were being submitted to obtain the passport. Bhat has named five persons Jitu, Jagdish Patel and Jayesh Ghoda from Ahmedabad, Altaf from Mumbai and Salim from Hyderabad, who helped him in the scam, the police stated in their remand application.
