Rashid surrenders, 'tainted' TRS MLA puts blame on KCR

Hyderabad, May 3 (UNI) Md Rashid, the alleged kingpin in the fake passport case involving MPs and MLAs, today surrendered before the city police even as the police slapped a case against Telangana Rashtra Samiti MLA S Bapu Rao in the connection.

Coming out of his hiding, Rao alleged in his home Boath constituency that TRS president K Chandrasekara Rao had hatched a ''conspiracy'' to implicate him for turning against the party leadership and settle scores with suspended TRS leader and former Union Minister of State A Narendra.

Mr Rao had been charged with obtaining passports for a Gujarati woman and two children in the names of his wife and children.

However, he admitted that he had applied for passports for his 'wife' and 'children' through Rashid.

Meanwhile, City Police Commissioner Balwinder Singh told reporters that further action against Rashid would be taken only after interrogating him. A case had been booked against Rashid in 2003 in connection with a fake passport case bue the accused had come out on bail the same year.

Rashid, who runs a travel agency in the city, had close links with several noted travel agencies from which he used to reserve air tickets for MPs, MLAs and officials, police sources said.

Soon after Rashid's surrender the CCS recovered four passports and other incriminating documents during searches in the houses of his relatives. However, the police declined to divulge details relating to the seized passports.

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