The racket bust, initial investigations indicate, could lead to the uncovering of a covert ring officially employed at different local-level educational boards, officials said. The racket, which falsified documents under any name on demand, supposedly used the same quality paper as the educational boards. [break]
"We are quite close to uncovering the hidden catalyst," said Inspector Sudip Raj Pathak, who led the operation.
Besides a massive business in forged educational testimonials through a nationwide network, the racket is also alleged to have counterfeited documents issued by police headquarters. "It would function like a complete solution for any type of document cheating," said SP Ganesh KC, chief of Metropolitan Police Range Kathmandu.
"It is a major blow to the forgery underworld here," KC added.
Those arrested in the bust are Laxman Shrestha, Lekha Nath Bhattarai, Hem Chand Dahal, Roshik Khadka and Shovakar Khanal, and some others associated with the racket are being hunted down. Police nabbed the racketeers in a sting operation, with someone posing as a client for a bachelor´s level certificate at a bargain price of Rs 12,000.
According to officials, the racketeers said they bought holograms from India for use in the forged documents. Police have also recovered 63 fake stamps which seem to have been used frequently on the forged documents.
Among several kinds of fake documents produced by the racket are those made out under the names of several prestigious educational boards in India. Besides the educational testimonials, the fake documents ranged from citizenship certificates to teaching licenses to any kind of official correspondence.
Public prosecutors have been demanding framing of stringent new laws against forgery of official documents. "Existing laws have many loopholes that help the accused easily off the hook. In most cases, the accused are bailed out on small amounts, "officials said.
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