Nearly 600 Bangladeshi passports are reported lost every day. But many of them may not be “lost” in the conventional sense.
Behind the extraordinary number are passports allegedly withheld by recruiting or visa agencies, documents migrant workers cannot retrieve from employers or intermediaries abroad, and cases in which passports are reported lost, or even deliberately destroyed, in connection with irregular migration, according to findings by the Department of Immigration and Passports.
The scale is striking.
Department sources say 107,300 applications citing lost passports were received in a six-month period, averaging around 17,885 a month and nearly 600 every day.
The volume has become a matter of concern for passport authorities, who are having to process the replacement applications alongside regular applications for new passports and renewals.
It has also prompted the government to tighten the rules for replacing lost, stolen or damaged passports.
While there will be no additional penalty for the first occurrence, anyone reporting a passport lost, stolen or damaged for a second or subsequent time will have to pay an additional Tk10,000 on top of the regular passport fee.
The provision came into effect on September 21 under a new government circular.
But officials say the more intriguing question is what lies behind such a large number of passports being reported lost.
When ‘lost’ does not mean misplaced
Officials at the Department of Immigration and Passports acknowledge that passports are inevitably lost, stolen or accidentally damaged.
But the scale and circumstances of the applications prompted the department to examine why so many people were seeking replacements.
Officials say they identified three recurring patterns.
The first begins before a traveller even leaves Bangladesh.
Many aspiring migrant workers and travellers hand over their passports to recruiting, travel or visa agencies to process visas.
In some cases, the agencies fail to secure the promised visa but continue to hold the client’s passport while delaying the process with repeated assurances.
Unable to recover the document and desperate to move on, some passport holders eventually file a General Diary with police saying the passport has been lost and use the GD to seek a replacement, officials said.
In effect, the passport may still physically exist, but its holder no longer has access to it.
The second pattern occurs overseas.
Bangladeshi migrant workers sometimes surrender passports to employers, sponsors or agencies while residence and work permits, including iqama in some Middle Eastern countries, are processed.
Problems arise when a worker receives a better job offer or decides to change employment but cannot retrieve the passport.
According to passport officials, some then approach the relevant Bangladesh mission and report the passport lost because they see no other way to obtain a new travel document.
The government’s new rules specifically recognise situations in which a visa agency, individual or institution unlawfully withholds a passport and the holder is unable to recover it.
In such cases, the previous passport can be revoked and a replacement issued through the prescribed procedure.
Passports and irregular migration
The third category identified by officials is more sensitive.
Passport authorities say some cases are connected to irregular migration.
According to officials, people who enter or remain in another country through irregular channels may seek a new passport after reporting the original lost.
In some cases, they said, a passport may even be deliberately destroyed or discarded before its holder seeks another one.
The department has not provided a breakdown of the 107,300 applications showing how many fall into each of these categories.
The explanations therefore represent patterns identified by passport officials and should not be taken to mean that most or all lost-passport applications involve deliberate misrepresentation.
Nevertheless, officials say the findings help explain why the number of replacement applications has reached a level that can no longer be treated simply as a matter of people accidentally misplacing documents.
Why a Tk10,000 penalty?
As applications continued to pile up, the Department of Immigration and Passports raised the issue with the Home Ministry during the previous interim government’s tenure.
Several meetings were subsequently held to consider how repeated passport losses could be discouraged.
Officials said policymakers were conscious that a Tk10,000 penalty would be substantial for many Bangladeshis given prevailing socio-economic conditions.
Ultimately, however, they decided against penalising someone for a first incident while imposing a significantly higher cost on repeated cases.
Under the new system, a person reporting a passport lost, stolen or damaged for the first time will pay only the regular fee required for reissuance.
From the second occurrence onwards, the applicant will have to pay an additional Tk10,000 each time.
The new rules were formalised through a government circular issued on September 21 and signed by Deputy Secretary Mohammad Nuruzzaman.
Lost passport must now be reported online
The circular also lays down a more structured procedure for dealing with lost, stolen and damaged passports.
A passport holder must immediately report the incident through the designated online system of the Department of Immigration and Passports and simultaneously file a General Diary at the nearest police station.
Police will then have 72 hours to verify the GD and submit a report.
If no police verification report is received within that period, the applicant can proceed with the reissuance process by submitting a copy of the GD, after which a “Lost Circular” will be initiated.
The procedure is intended not only to facilitate replacement but also to ensure that a passport reported missing is quickly identified within immigration and law-enforcement systems.
Information on a lost or stolen passport will be entered into the Special Branch’s Immigration Management System immediately after the report is received.
INTERPOL may also be informed where necessary.
Passport withheld? There is now a procedure
The circular separately addresses one of the problems identified during the department’s investigation, passports being withheld by third parties.
If a visa agency, individual or institution unlawfully keeps someone’s passport and efforts to retrieve it fail, the holder can seek revocation of the original document and issuance of a new passport.
This means passport holders in such circumstances will have a formal route to seek replacement rather than continuing indefinitely without access to their travel document.
Bangladeshis who lose their passports overseas must report the matter to the relevant Bangladesh embassy, high commission or other diplomatic mission.
The mission will issue the necessary Lost Circular and process the application for reissuance.
New passport will carry a record
Replacement will not completely erase the history of the missing document.
The data page of a passport reissued following a reported loss will state: “Previous Passport is Reported to be Lost.”
Applicants will also not be able to use the reissuance process to change fundamental identity information such as their name, parents’ names or date of birth.
That provision is intended to ensure continuity between the identity attached to the cancelled passport and the replacement document.
The new rules also address what happens when someone finds a passport after already reporting it lost.
Once the original passport has been revoked, recovering it does not make it valid again.
The holder cannot use the recovered passport for international travel and must notify the relevant authorities or police so that the document can be dealt with according to procedure.
The restriction is significant because a passport reported lost or stolen may already have been entered into immigration databases as an invalid travel document.
‘The number is concerning’
ATM Abu Asad, additional director general for passport, visa and immigration at the Department of Immigration and Passports, said the volume of applications involving lost, stolen or damaged passports had become a concern.
“We have issued certain guidelines to raise awareness among passport holders,” he told Bangla Tribune.
“We have not imposed any additional fee for the first instance,” he said.
“However, an extra Tk10,000 has been set as a penalty for a second occurrence. This measure is intended solely to foster awareness.”
The department’s message, he said, was ultimately about responsibility.
“Our appeal is for passport holders to be responsible and keep their passports safe.”
Yet the department’s own examination suggests that responsibility is only part of the story.
Some passports really are lost. Some are stolen or damaged. Others, according to officials, remain in the hands of agencies or employers their owners can no longer reach.
And some become entangled in the much murkier world of irregular migration.
Together, they have produced an extraordinary statistic: around 600 Bangladeshi passports reported “lost” every day.