Mumbai: Bangladeshi national Mardy Liton, 38, who changed his name to Liton Das to obtain an Indian passport fraudulently, was stopped at Mumbai International Airport on March 11 at 8 am before he could board flight AI-2354 to Bangkok, Thailand, to meet his girlfriend, a Bangladeshi national working there.Sahar police said Liton was caught by immigration officials after he reached the airport from Goa, and his Indian passport was found to be red-flagged with “DRILS STATUS”, which means damage, revoke, impound, lost and stolen.Liton was stopped by assistant immigration officer Swaminath Date on suspicion after noticing the DRILS status alert and the passport issued by a border city of West Bengal. He was later arrested. When questioned, Liton confessed that he entered India illegally through the borders in 2018 and obtained the Indian passport in 2022 from West Bengal using fake Indian documents after paying Rs 50,000 to an agent, police said.Liton stayed in West Bengal and obtained the passport in 2022 before travelling to Goa, where he worked in a hotel as a waiter without being caught by local police.“The immigration officials decided to verify Liton when he went to the counter for check-in stamping to fly to Bangkok to meet his girlfriend. The officials took him for questioning when they found the alert DRILS status. It typically refers to a system or code indicating a negative or adverse action against the passport holder. When a passport is marked with a “DRILS” status (often seen as “DRILS Status (Revoked)” or “DRILS Status (Impounded)”), it means the passport is invalidated, and the holder is barred from travelling,” said a police officer of the Sahar police station.In the complaint, Date said: “The Immigration Check System observed that the said passport was issued by the Kolkata Passport Office and bore a “DRILS STATUS.” When questioned, he said he entered India from Bangladesh in 2018 via the Haridaspur Immigration Check Post. Initially, he stayed in Kolkata, West Bengal; subsequently, he informed us that he settled in Porvorim, Goa. While residing in Shantipur, West Bengal, he, with the assistance of a local agent, obtained documents serving as proof of citizenship under the name Liton Das and a passport in 2022. With the passport, he travelled to Bangladesh two times and once to Bangkok,” said the officer.
