Though immigration officials seized the passports from the Chinese nationals four months ago, the Chinese embassy only recently confirmed that the seized travel documents are not genuine, according to a knowledgeable source at DoI. [break]
As preliminary investigations found the seized travel documents to be fake, the Chinese embassy has requested DoI to hand them over to it for further investigations. But officials at the department said they cannot give the passports to the Chinese embassy until the accused present themselves in person to claim the documents and the investigations are completed.
“It is not possible to hand over the passports to the Chinese embassy until the accused are brought to book,” said Sudhir Kumar Shah, director general at DoI, when asked whether DoI would respond positively to the Chinese request.
Immigration officials acting on suspicion had arrested Buli Wu, Laiyin Sai, Yuhong Wang, Degang Zhang, Yuanhua Zhang, Rban Ku and Zengshun Wang from Tribhuvan International Airport on August 12. The accused were about to board a plane to Malaysia before their arrest. Their passports carried valid visas for Malaysia, Iran and Turkey.
Officials dealing with the issue said that the Chinese embassy is very concerned over the use of fake passports as the posessors are Chinese Muslims.
This is the first time immigration officials have found Chinese nationals coming to Nepal with fake Chinese passports. The immigration officials are concerned over the attempt by Chinese nationals to use Nepali soil to go to other countries with fake passports.
Though they were arrested for possessing fake passports, they were later released on condition of presenting themselves when needed. But the Chinese nationals have been at large since their release.
Immigration officials became suspicious of the Chinese nationals after they found that their Malaysian visas were issued from Bangkok though they were in Nepal on the date they obtained the visas. Officials involved suspect that they might have gone into hiding in Nepal or India.
Following their arrest, DoI had sent details concerning the passports and the Chinese nationals to the Chinese embassy for verification. In response, the embassy recently wrote to the department that "those passports are preliminarily found fake."
Immigration officials have declined to disclose the faults in the seized passports, arguing that the accused are still at large. It has asked Metropolitan Police Circle Hanumandhoka to arrest the accused and present them before it.
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