Kathmandu, January 1

Police have arrested six persons for their alleged involvement in forgery racket of printing huge cache of counterfeit government documents.

Police confiscated fake documents from New Road-based Photo Concern, one of the oldest photo studios in the country. Seized fake documents include smart driving licences, Nepali citizenship certificates, government employees’ identity cards and identity cards of Armed Police Force.

Those arrested have been identified as Deepak Blon, 27, of Lalbandi and Buddhi Bahadur Rokka aka Subhas, 48, of Hariwon in Sarlahi, Ananta Gurung, 31, of Bouddha, Ashok Karki, 31, of Simara in Bara, Mohan Yadav, 41, in Sukhipur of Siraha and Kumar Tandukar, 56, of Lazimpat. Some of them worked as photographer, sales officer, printer and cashier of the photo studio.

Police got a hint of the illegal racket as Blon produced a fake driving license to the traffic police after breaking traffic rule yesterday at Putalisadak. Suspecting that the license was duplicate, traffic police had sought the help of Nepal Police, leading to his arrest. During interrogation Blon said that a man named Buddhi Bahadur Rokka had provided him the license for Rs 30,000.

Rokka, who operates a graphic designing centre at Teku, had after designing the driving license, taken it to Photo Concern to get it printed. Senior Superintendent of Police Hridaya Thapa of Metropolitan Crime Division said Rokka provided information that Photo Concern was involved in printing illegal documents.

Police raided the photo studio and seized huge cache of fake documents.

Some of them were Aadhar cards issued by the government of India, duplicate identity cards of security agencies of Nepal government and employees of Nepal government and identity cards of dozens of private schools and colleges.

SP Thapa said although a few fake driving licenses were seized during the raid, large numbers of such documents could have been circulated in the market. “Traffic police have been warned about it. We will arrest anybody if found using duplicate cards.”

All the arrested persons have been charged with offense related to fake documents, which as per the existing rules, can put the offenders for up to seven years behind bars, with fine imposed up to Rs 70,000, each.