Hyderabad, June 05: In what could be a major relief to Tatkal passport applicants, police today busted a racket in which the Regional Passport Office (RPO) website was hacked, and slots blocked and sold to applicants able to shell out a premium.
With the arrest of the gang, genuine applicants can now have easy access to the slots without paying extra, the police said.
The fraud came to light after RPO authorities noticed about two months back that applicants were failing to secure slots through the online system and that these were getting filled up within seconds of opening.
Police investigations led to the arrest of seven persons, including six travel agents and a PG diplomaholder in computer applications, who hacked the RPO website and blocked the slots. The RPO’s website, www.passport.gov.in, is maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), New Delhi.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner A K Khan said the main accused, G Lathadhara Rao, a native of Narsaraopet in Guntur district who has a PG Diploma in Computer Applications, was hired by a travel agent, Shaik Subhani, of Narsaraopet to register passports online under the Tatkal scheme and was given Rs 100 per application as commission.
According to Khan, since February this year there has been a heavy rush for Tatkal applications and the applicants were failing to get a slot. “Lathadar Rao found bugs in the RPO’s website with the help of which he could access the NIC server and succeeded in submitting the passport applications with confirmed dates under the Tatkal scheme even though the dates were yet to be officially released by the passport authorities,’’ Khan said.
Subhani, meanwhile, extended his operations to the city and hired seven sub-agents in the city to get passport applicants to sell the slots.
“The city-based passport agents used to mail the details of the passport agents to Subhani and the same were passed on to Lathadhar Rao, who hacked the website, uploaded the passport application forms and got the slots booked on dates which were not released by the RPO,’’ the commissioner said.
With many applicants approaching the RPO office for passports at the last minute, there is a huge demand for the Tatkal scheme and the gang took advantage of the situation, police said.
The travel agents used to charge between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000 from each Tatkal applicant and they used to share the amount on a 2:1 basis.
“Lathadhar Rao used to get Rs 1,000 while the travel agents, including Subhani, used to share the remaining. In the past two months, the gang uploaded more than 3,000 applications and booked slots,’’ Khan said.
According to police, though the website administrators rectified some of the bugs, Lathadhar Rao could get around these too.
Police also said the travel agents used to keep a close watch on slot openings and block them as soon as they opened up and sell the same to applicants at a premium.
Initial investigations did not point to any involvement of RPO employees, Khan revealed. Apart from Lathadhar Rao and Subhani, police arrested five passport agents from the city — Mohd Jahangir, B Srihari, G Chinna, Syed Valiuddin and K Penchal Reddy.
Two others, Kaleem and Srinivas, are absconding.
–Agencies