These MRPs have been unaccounted for, missing or cancelled from different regional offices of the department of immigration and passports (DIP) in 2016.
Mahbubur Bhuiyan, assistant inspector-general of police, has sought the directive by sending a letter to the home ministry in this respect, sources in the DIP and the police in Dhaka said.
The ministry has not yet come up with such a directive, they added.
In the letter, the police department said, “The different regional offices of the DIP sent the numbers of 18,417 MRPs, cancelled by or missing from the offices from January–June last year, to the inspector-general of police (IGP).”
They sought their insertions in the Interpol website and these were duly inserted.
After that the DIP offices further sent another 10,372 MRPs, cancelled or missing, with the same request.
“In the meantime, we are getting information that some Bangladeshi passport-holders are being detained and hassled at different places abroad, causing the image of the country to be tarnished. And that is why we need a directive from the ministry in this regard.”
According to the letter, a total of 28,789 MRPs have been lost or cancelled from different regional offices of the DIP from January to November 2016.
Acting director-general Fazlur Rahman said that they are yet to give any letter to the police headquarters, requesting insertion of the numbers of 28,789 MRPs, cancelled by or missing from different offices of the DIP.
“We just send the numbers of the MRPs to the ministry of foreign affairs and the special branch (SB) of police not for their insertion on the Interpol website,” he said.
“As far as I know, assistant director Shahadat Hossain was sent a list of 2,800 MRPs, stolen from our warehouse, to the police headquarters, requesting for insertion of the MRP numbers on the Interpol website,” he added.
He disclosed that a few MRPs have gone missing or were cancelled at different regional offices, mostly in Dhaka, for different causes—they were mostly reported missing while the passport-holders were travelling.
Sources in the DIP said a number of blank passport booklets had been stolen from the warehouse of the DIP.
There are also many instances of persons having more than one MRP as these were obtained under different names and addresses, using the same photograph through “mis-fingering” or by taking the imprints of wrong fingers. After identification, these were cancelled.
A senior official of the passports department said at least 17.5mn MRPs have been issued to date. MRPs were introduced in the country in 2010, to speed up clearance and improve security for travellers.
The charges for obtaining an MRP, on an emergency basis, are 6,000 taka while a normal
passport costs 3,000 taka.
