The Mumbai airport immigration officers detained a man trying to fly to Dubai for a seafarer’s job. The detention took place on Saturday when an immigration officer, Ganesh Gawali, asked him about his job profile in Dubai, to which he had no answer. The officer then asked the accused, identified as Suhail Mushtaque Mulla, to submit his documents, including the school leaving certificate and Std X mark sheet, which were found to be fake. Realising the fraud, the officers then contacted the police, who arrested him. 

While checking his certificates, police found that the accused had obtained the Std X mark sheet from universities blacklisted by the University Grants Commission and that the mark sheet and school leaving certificate of Std IX both showed the year 2006. Further investigations revealed that he had twice travelled abroad — to Sri Lanka and Dubai — for seafarer jobs on ships.

During interrogation, Mulla, a resident of Khed in Maharashtra, revealed to the police that in 2006, he gave Rs 8000 to an agent in Ratnagiri to obtain the fake mark sheet from a university in Lucknow, UP. A police officer said, “The accused was taken into custody, and he revealed that he gave R8000 in 2006 for the SSC mark sheet. He had submitted the fake mark sheet at the DG shipping office in Mumbai and obtained a Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC, also called a seaman book). In 2017, the accused worked as a seafarer in Sri Lanka, and in 2023 he travelled to Dubai.”