CBI may quiz Dubai consulate staff in passport probe
Takla was arrested by the CBI in March 2018 for his alleged role in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.
Mumbai: The CBI is likely to quiz a few former employees of the Dubai consulate in connection with its probe into Yasir Mansoor Farooq alias Farooq Takla’s (56) fraudulent acquisition of two passports between 2001 and 2011.
Sources said the agency will gather details from consulate employees who had dealt with Takla’s passport application to find out and establish if there was any lapse in conducting due diligence before issuing him the passports.
Takla allegedly used an assumed identity profile - in the name of ‘Mustak Mohammed Miya’, son of Mohammed Miya Shaikh – during his stay in the UAE to fraudulently acquire both passports, said sources.
For the fake profile, he cited a Maharashtra address pertaining to Raigad district. The passports were acquired from the Indian consulate general, Dubai, and one of them was valid till 2021, said agency sources. Takla was arrested by the CBI in March 2018 for his alleged role in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.
One of the two passports under the CBI scanner was acquired in July 2001, which lapsed in a year. The other one was acquired in February 2011 and was valid for the next 10 years, said sources.
The CBI registered a case against Takla for acquisition of passports under the Indian Penal Code sections related to punishment for cheating by personation, forgery for the purpose of cheating, and using as genuine a forged document as well as relevant sections of the Passport Act.
Takla, an alleged close aide of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim, allegedly shifted to Dubai in 1992, sources said.
In June 1995, the TADA court declared him as a proclaimed offender and the Interpol issued a red-corner notice against him the same year.
The CBI accused Takla of helping provide the Pakistan-bound trainees accommodation in Dubai and facilities for transit to Pakistan in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.