The ruse seemed foolproof—a trip abroad for official work. The plan: to frolic in the pristine blue waters of the Maldives with his girlfriend. Confident that he had pulled off an extra-marital stunt, this 32-year-old engineer with an MNC literally pulled off a few pages from his passport to hide his masti from his wife, blissfully unaware that it was a crime. On his return, he was promptly arrested at the city airport.

The engineer was handed over to the Sahar police on Thursday after immigration authorities found that some pages from his passport were missing after his return from the Maldives and he was unable to give a satisfactory reply to them.