Man deported from Russia after passport office goof-up

BENGALURU: A 46-year-old city businessman, who was on a leisure trip to Moscow, had a harrowing time after landing in the Russian capital and was deported back to India from the airport, for no fault of his. A clerical mistake committed by Passport Seva Kendra officials in his passport, where the page numbers were mismatched, led to Mr Praveen Kumar Chowhan spending time at a prison cell at the Moscow airport.

Mr Chowhan said that he was humiliated, treated like a criminal, made to wait for over 10 hours and thrown into a jail cell with 34 other criminals, because of the negligence of officials at the Passport Seva Kendra on Lalbagh Road. “It was meant to be a leisure trip with my 16 other friends. We left Bengaluru on August 7 and reached Moscow by Air Arabia flight mid-afternoon the next day. At the immigration check, all my friends were given clearance, except me. A Russian immigration official took away my passport and said that I had to wait for some time,” he said.

“After nearly six hours, he returned to inform me that my passport was not valid as it was damaged and that he cannot let me enter the country. He said that the passport pages were not matching and they were not in a series,” Mr Chowhan said.