Daman's dual passport racket rattles police

AHMEDABAD: Daman police believe the Union territory, located just off south Gujarat, has become a gateway to Europe. They are dealing with a deluge of 285 complaints of Indian citizens who also hold Portuguese passports illegally. Then there are ample cases involving impersonations.
What makes it tricky is that some of these ‘foreign nationals' are government employees and elected representatives in this former Portuguese colony which got liberated in 1961, along with Goa and Diu.
The police sought advice of the Union ministry of home affairs on whether to file first information reports (FIR) as it involves taking action against supposed foreign nationals even though many suspects also hold Indian passports.
The Constitution of India does not allow holding Indian citizenship and citizenship of a foreign country simultaneously. But, there are hundreds of people in the Union territory who hold two passports — Indian and Portuguese. Take the case of Pedro Antonio Pereira, who served as supervisor with the Daman Municipal Council (DMC) and had to leave the services in September last year after it was informed that he was holding a Portuguese passport (No. J364357) since 2008.
Daman residents born before December 20, 1961, were Portuguese nationals before they became Indian citizens under the Goa, Daman & Diu Citizenship Order, 1962. However, the Portuguese government entertained citizenship applications from citizens of the erstwhile colonies for granting 'Billet de identidade', or national identity card.
The issue cropped up in September last year when officials from the Daman Municipal Council took objection over some of their colleagues holding dual citizenships. “One requires a police clearance certificate before applying for Portuguese citizenship but in many cases proper verification was not done,” says a senior police official in Daman.
“Because of the Portuguese passport fraud cases, we have brought in a stringent three-tier system to scrutinize credibility of citizens who wish to surrender their Indian passports for the Portuguese one,” says Atul Thakur, superintendent of police, Daman.