Acting on complaints that fake documents were being used to obtain visas, the Gujarat police carried out raids at 17 immigration consultancy firms in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Vadodara and seized passports and computer hardware, a senior official said Saturday.

The raids followed surveillance of a month by personnel from the state CID Crime, Additional DGP (CID Crime) Rajkumar Pandian said.

"Joint raids were held at 17 offices of visa agents. We seized 27 passports, 182 copies of passports, 53 computers and hard drives, 79 mark sheets and other documents. The raids were carried out on Friday by 17 teams with over 50 police personnel and computer experts as well as one SP and four Deputy SPs," he told reporters.

Several visa consultant firms were under the scanner after complaints were received that people going abroad, especially to the USA, Canada and Australia, were forced to return to India from airports abroad despite paying huge amounts to these consultancy firms to help procure visa, he said.

Pandian said documents, including mark sheets of universities in other states, passports and copies of passports, stamps, computers, hard disks and Rs 5.5 lakh cash were among items that were seized during the raids.

Liquor bottles were also found at two of the firms that were raided. he said. Gujarat has a strict prohibition policy.

These documents and items have been sent to the forensic laboratory to check their authenticity and action will be taken once the report is in, he added.

"These firms mainly used fake mark sheets of universities located in other states and also modified scores of IELTS and other such tests that are required for visas to certain countries," Pandian said.

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