Immigration Officer Detained for Irregular Departure of Worker

Kathmandu. Workers going for foreign employment without labor approval have been found to be flown out through 'setting'. Immigration officer Chet Bahadur Sejuwal of the Immigration Office at Tribhuvan International Airport has been transferred to the department after it was found that a passenger scheduled to depart for Kuwait on October 5 was illegally given departure permission. The process of labor approval was initiated from the foreign employment department's system only after the passenger had already flown. Preliminary investigation of the Immigration Department's 'Nepali Port System' and the airport's CCTV footage has revealed the details of the incident. The passenger had entered the immigration area around 6:30 AM on October 5. Despite not having labor approval, he had conversations at the immigration desk for about half an hour. During that time, contact was also made with a third person, and after the 'setting' was arranged, departure permission was granted at 7:10 AM, according to the preliminary investigation conducted by the department. Another middleman was also found to be involved in facilitating departure permission for the passenger heading for foreign employment. Departure permission was granted by officer Sejuwal. A transaction of 23,000 rupees was also found to have occurred between another person residing in Japan and the middleman, said Tika Ram Dhakal, Director of the Immigration Department. The preliminary investigation by the department found that the person residing in Japan sent the money to the middleman via QR, and the officer granted departure after confirming the arrival of the money. In this case, it has been preliminarily concluded that the immigration officer working at the airport who granted departure permission was directly involved. Director Dhakal stated that a letter has been sent to the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority for a detailed investigation into the immigration officer involved in the incident.