Would you like some visa documents to go with your sandwich?

When you stop by at a roadside vendor to grab a quick bite you probably scrutinise the quality of the ingredients the cleanliness quotient etc But have you ever paid attention to the wrapper that comes with the food Arvind Sharma has The results were startling on this particular occasion The 37yearold found his sandwich from a Santacruz E hawker enfolded in an original visa application document with confidential information of the associate vicepresident of a private bank The covering letter from the bank was addressed to the Malaysian consulate Chew on that Left Sandwich vendor Ram Avadh and Arvind Sharma with some of the documentsu00a0PicSuresh KK ldquoI found a bunch of stapled papers with the vendor which he was using to wrap the sandwiches Out of sheer curiosity I picked up the documents and was shocked to read the contents The piece of paper he had used to envelop my sandwich was the bank statement of the official in question with details like his address bank account number opening and closing balance and information of deposits and withdrawals Since I have been acquainted with the vendor Ram Avadh for years I asked him the source of the bundle of papers and he said he got it from a scrap dealer He also allowed me to keep the documentsrdquo Sharma told MiD DAY What a waste A few metres away from the sandwich vendor was a scrap dealerrsquos shop MiD DAY spoke to the proprietor Mohanlal Jain ldquoI check the content of the papers that come to us as raddi and in case I find something scribbled on them or utility bills such papers are torn and kept aside They are never jumbled with the bunch of papers that are sold to vendorsrdquo he maintained Speaking to MiD DAY Ram Avadh who usually starts his business post afternoon admitted to handing over the documents to Sharma ldquoI buy these papers from a scrap trader in Shahunagar Mahim paying him Rs 16 per kilogram I do not know anything about the contents of these documents as I am illiteraterdquo Sharma handed over the rags to MiD DAY Preliminary inquiries conducted by this newspaper revealed that the bankrsquos human resource department had issued the covering note on March 1 2011 to the Malaysian consulate for issuing a visa from March 22 to April 1 2011 for its associate VP Bitter facts When we contacted the bank official in question who had just returned from a trip to Thailand he was utterly shocked ldquoIt is unfortunate that consulates do not entertain visa applicants directly at their offices and larger travel agencies usually do not take up mere visa processing work Hence I remember approaching a local travel agent in Kalina who was handed three sets of documentsrdquo he said He added ldquoI am really astonished I should have asked my travel agent to return my documents which I did not It was a mistakerdquo Meanwhile Mumbai police spokesperson DCP crime Nisar Tamboli said ldquoThe responsibility rests on the institutions to whom the applicant had submitted the documents with trust and they should have ensured that they were kept in safe custody Even if they had to dispose of them they should have done it with utmost care and caution The personal data if fallen in wrong hands can be misused by any antisocial or antinational element for personal gains causing problems to the applicant for no fault of hisrdquo The other side Abdul Halim Haji Hashim counsel for the visa section at the Malaysian consulate in Mumbai said ldquoWe are extremely sorry for the inconvenience caused to the applicant We have not disposed of any visa documents directly We have a shredder machine and have documents that have come to us in the last seven months lying here for disposal If such an incident has happened it might have occurred during the renovation of our visa office in Bandra Unfortunately we have not started computerised scanning of documents submitted by visa applicants to get rid of paperwork We still do a lot of the tasks manually and hence have loads of documents in stock But we can assure you that post the repair work no outsider is allowed entry inside the office premises and policemen are on duty round the clock I promise you that such incidents wonrsquot happen in futurerdquo Food for thought On November 28 last year MiD DAY had reported how south Mumbai resident Dhiren Jhaveri discovered Airtel forms containing confidential information in the hands of a roadside food vendor who acquired them from a scrap dealer u00a0