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13th National Parliamentary ElectionFact CheckPolitical

Fake passport photo claiming Nahid Islam bought citizenship of Dominica

A photo of a passport from the Caribbean island nation of Dominica containing the name, picture, and signature of Nahid Islam, the 12-Party Alliance candidate for the Dhaka-11 seat and Convener of the National Citizens’ Party (NCP), has spread on social media with the claim that he has bought citizenship of the country.

See some posts circulated on Facebook with this claim: here, here, here, here, here.

See posts circulated on other platforms with the same claim: Instagram, Threads, X.

Fact Check

The Rumor Scanner team’s investigation reveals that the passport photo circulated with the claim that Nahid Islam has taken citizenship of Dominica is not real. In reality, this fake passport was created by collecting a sample or template of a Dominican passport from the internet and adding Nahid Islam’s photo and signature using digital technology.

Investigating this matter, a passport photo of Dominica was found on a website named ‘Paulo Travels’. This is basically a sample or Demo Passport (Specimen Passport) of the country. The website contains templates of passports from various other countries as well. The photo of actor Rowan Atkinson, known as Mr. Bean, has been used in this sample. A noticeable point is that the signature of the Dominican immigration officer present in this sample passport is exactly the same as the signature in the passport circulated in Nahid Islam’s name.

Upon further investigation, a clearer image of the same demo passport was found on a website named ‘uruperu’. Scanning the barcode of that sample passport and the barcode of the passport circulated in Nahid Islam’s name using Google Lens revealed that the same code (RA015060) is displayed as the passport number in both cases.

It is worth noting that although an attempt was made to make the number visible below the barcode in the passport circulated in Nahid Islam’s name look different from the number in the sample passport, scanning the barcode reveals the same original code. Basically, the barcode or machine-readable code of every valid passport is unique according to the individual’s information. Consequently, there is no scope for the same barcode to exist in the passports of different individuals.

Additionally, observing the signature of Nahid Islam used in the passport, it was seen that it matches exactly with a photo of his signature on Wikipedia. Analyzing the density of the signature and the stroke of the underline makes it clear that it was collected from online and placed on the passport.

Furthermore, the photo used in the passport was also verified separately. It shows that the facial expression and attire in the photo added to the passport are identical to the photo of Nahid Islam published in a news report by Prothom Alo.

That is, this fabricated passport was created in Nahid Islam’s name by editing a sample passport available online.

Therefore, the passport photo circulated claiming that Nahid Islam has bought citizenship of the Caribbean island nation of Dominica is edited.

Sources

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