A mobile court sentenced 19 passport brokers to three-month imprisonment in the capital’s Agargaon yesterday.
A team of the Rapid Action Battalion led by Executive Magistrate Anisur Rahman conducted a drive in Agargaon passport office and detained 20 brokers while they were bargaining passport seekers and processing papers of other passport seekers.
Of the detainees, one was fined to Tk10,000 and 19 others were sentenced to three months of imprisonment along with fine of Tk5,000 each.
The executive magistrate said the brokers were hampering official activities and normal procedures of the passport office. They were punished according to mobile court act, he added. Lieutenant Colonel Masud Rana, commanding officer of RAB 2, said: “We are running an operation to make passport offices free from brokers.
“We have detained many people conducting drives at several passport offices.”
Officials of passport offices involved in such illegal practice will also be identified soon, he added.