ED Probes Pakistani National’s Role In Bengal EPIC Scam, Passport And Hawala Links

The ED is probing Azad Mullick for a fake EPIC racket aiding Bangladeshi infiltrators. Mullick, linked to passport fraud, allegedly arranged 55+ fake cards; details of 78 cardholders are being sought.

The agency has launched a deeper investigation following specific leads that point to Azad’s key role in facilitating fake EPICs.

Source : PTI

Kolkata, June 14 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has unearthed fresh evidence indicating the direct involvement of Azad Mullick, a Pakistani national arrested in Kolkata in April, in a major racket involving fake Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPICs), in addition to earlier charges of passport fraud and hawala operations.

According to ED sources, the agency has launched a deeper investigation following specific leads that point to Azad’s key role in facilitating fake EPICs, especially for illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.

Mullick is already facing two serious allegations -- involvement in a fake Indian passport syndicate and operating an underground hawala network from Kolkata.

The latest findings suggest that Azad had managed to penetrate local administrative networks to obtain and distribute forged voter IDs.

The ED has formally sought details of 78 EPIC cardholders from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.

Investigators suspect that at least 55 of these cards were arranged by Azad, with recipients primarily from the bordering districts of North 24 Parganas and Nadia.

The CEO’s office has, in turn, asked the district magistrates of these areas to verify the identities of the listed individuals, and a comprehensive report is expected to be submitted to the ED by the end of this month.

During interrogation, Azad reportedly admitted to being listed as a voter in the Dum Dum-Uttar Assembly constituency in North 24 Parganas -- one of the seven assembly segments under the Dum Dum Lok Sabha seat.

He is believed to have voted in both the 2021 and 2024 elections. The ED has requested the CEO’s office to furnish documents based on which Azad procured his EPIC.

The issue of foreign nationals acquiring Indian voter IDs has emerged as a politically charged matter in West Bengal, particularly ahead of next year’s Assembly elections.

In a related development on Friday, the CEO’s office reportedly removed Newton Das -- a person holding dual citizenship of India and Bangladesh -- from the electoral rolls.

Das, who was active in the student movement in Bangladesh last year, had been registered as a voter in the Kakdwip Assembly constituency of South 24 Parganas district.

Azad’s case, however, is even more complex. When the ED arrested him in April, seized documents initially indicated that he was a Bangladeshi national who had acquired Indian documents -- including a passport -- using fake credentials.

But on April 29, the ED informed a special court in Kolkata that Mullick had confessed to originally being a Pakistani citizen. He reportedly admitted to first obtaining Bangladeshi citizenship through forged documents, and subsequently using the same modus operandi to acquire Indian identity documents.

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)