Fingerprint surgery done in Lanka to get visa illegally

Investigations by the Police in India have revealed that an individual had altered his fingerprint in Lanka to secure a visa to Kuwait illegally.The police in Telangana have busted a racket where surgeries were conducted to alter fingerprints to smuggle candidates into Kuwait for jobs.    Four people have been arrested, including two people who altered their fingerprints to apply for a fresh Kuwait visa.

The police said that the gang carried out illegal fingerprint surgeries to help people who were deported from Kuwait for illegally overstaying their visas to get back into the Gulf country.

Addressing the media on Thursday (Sept 1), Rachakonda commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that the main accused in the case, Gajjalakondugari Naga Muneswar Reddy, is a resident of Kadapa. He had been working as a radiographer in Tirupati, where he met his classmate — second accused Sagabala Venkata Ramana, who is an anaesthesia technician. Muneshwar Reddy had met a person who was working in Kuwait and was deported to India for overstaying after his visa had expired.

He learnt that the man had gone to Sri Lanka, got a surgery on his fingertips and then managed to go back to Kuwait. Learning of this, Muneshwar decided to hatch a plan to earn more money through this method.

Along with Venkata Raman, the anaesthesia surgeon, Muneshwar went to Rajasthan and conducted such surgeries on two people, charging them INRs 25,000 each for the same. Then, another person from Kerala contacted Muneshwar, and the duo went to Kerala and surgically transformed the fingertips of six other people, at the cost of INRs 1.5 lakh. Three more people, who hailed from the duo’s village, also got their fingertips altered at the cost of Rs 25,000 each.