A man who allegedly forged identity documents that were used to obtain passports was arrested on Wednesday as part of a racket busted recently.

With the arrest of Dipankar Das, a resident of Haridevpur, the arrest figure in the case rose to five.

The police said Das was rounded up from his office at 297E/2 Motilal Gupta Road in Barisha, under Haridevpur police station.

“Computers, fake seals of nationalised banks, photocopies of 36 Indian passports and Schengen and UK visas were found in his office. A preliminary inquiry so far revealed that Dipankar Das was responsible for manufacturing fake identity documents that were used to obtain passports,” said a senior officer of Kolkata Police.

The probe was started based on information shared by the Regional Passport Office, Calcutta, that many passports were found to have been issued with documents ridden with discrepancies.

Metro reported on Wednesday, quoting officials in the passport office, that more than 240 passports have been issued in Bengal based on identity documents that later turned out to be fake, a revelation that raised questions about the efficacy of the police verification process.

Kolkata Police have formed a special investigation team to probe such cases. During the investigation, the police came across a racket engaged in documents that helped people forge their identities and obtain passports even when they were not eligible.

The police said all the cases reported by the passport office were from post office Passport Seva Kendras, which means the applications were filed in post offices.

One of the persons arrested so far is a postman of the Panchasayar post office.

Das, who was arrested early on Wednesday, allegedly prepared fake documents and handed them to his “boss”, who gave them to Samaresh Biswas, arrested earlier from Barasat.

Das’s “boss” has yet to be arrested and is still at large, the police said. Das was produced in the Alipore court on Thursday and remanded in police custody till December 26.

“Thousands of fake documents have been seized from the accused. Instruments used to carry out the forgery have also been seized. Das has been remanded in police custody for eight days,” chief public prosecutor Sourin Ghosal said.