Immigration officials just can’t spot a fake photograph

Hyderabad: Here is strange finding for all the talk of hi-tech and perfect systems in place that immigration officials at the Shamshabad Airport are not trained ‘enough’ to identify a replaced photograph in a foreign passport.
Interestingly, with the arrest of an Afghani national Javed on Sunday morning, the ‘involvement’ of immigration officials was suspected.
Even after the arrest of Mahalingam N of Srilanka at Shamshabad airport, who was deported by Kuwait airport authority officials in May, police said that immigration officials could be involved. Both Javed and Mahalingam used passports of other people replacing the original photographs in them with their own.
In fact, Javed was planning to travel to Paris via Colombo, with a Mexican national’s passport and Mahalingam was also planning to reach Paris via Kuwait. Both the accused were successful in fooling the immigration officials at Shamshabad international airport but were caught at other airports.
Immigration officials at Shamshabad airport however claim that Javed and Mahalingam were able to con them as the currently available mechanism does not show the photograph of the passport holder when the passport is swiped.
“When the passport is swiped, all the details of the passport get displayed on the computer monitor except the photograph. Likes of Javed could not have sneaked in through immigration check if the facility is available,” an immigration official said.
But the Foreigner’s Regional Registration Officer (FRRO), Chennai, Avi Prakash, said that even if the photograph in the passport does not get displayed, a tampered photograph can be easily traced by looking for the in built security features in the passport.
“When the photograph in the Indian passport is kept under the UV light, one can clearly see the Indian Emblem. Mexican and Malaysian passports also have good security features, about which the immigration officials across the country are well trained in,” Avi Prakash said.
The immigration staff at Shamshabad airport were trained by the Chennai Bureau of Immigration (BOI) officials for 15 days before the functioning of the airport at Shamshabad.
But the immigration officials said that the 15-day training was insufficient for them to understand all the issues related to immigration.
“How can one expected to remember passport features of 190 nations in the world with a 15- day training? There is no reference material available and no refresher classes after the preliminary training. Most of them are from law and order section of the police department for whom immigration is new. We need better training and reference material to do a better job,” a senior immigration official of Shamshabad airport said.
Meanwhile, efforts are on to incorporate the latest technology into Indian passports which will enable photo display of the passport holder at the immigration check.
“At present none of the Indian airports have the photo display facility when the passport number is keyed in. Efforts are on to incorporate the RFID technology in passports to make Indian passports tamper- proof,” a top official of BOI said.
He said the facility was available at the airports of developed nations like USA and UK.