Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) A total of 798 foreigners were deported since January 2008 for using forged Indian visas and 161 Indians were arrested for obtaining fake foreign visas, parliament was told Tuesday.

Minister of State for Home Affairs M. Ramachandran also told the Lok Sabha Tuesday that the Indian government had taken several steps to beat syndicates issuing forged visa.

“Indians intercepted while travelling on forged foreign visa are handed over to the police for further action,” he said in a statement.

“Foreigners intercepted with forged visa (on) arrival are refused entry into India and are deported back to the port of embarkation,” he added.

The number of foreigners caught in 2008 was 178, 264 in 2009 and 271 in 2010. Until June this year, the figure was 85.

The number of Indians caught was 69 in 2008, 36 in 2009 and 35 in 2010. This stood at 21 till June this year.

The minister said among the steps taken to prevent visa forgery were use of machine readable zone and photograph of the visa holder in new India visa sticker, and provision of technical gadgets to immigration officers.

The specimen copies of the visa stickers of different countries were provided to the immigration counter officers to ascertain the genuineness of the doubtful visas.

Special training was also organised to detect forgeries in travel documents, he added.