People are desperate to travel between districts and States after lockdown restrictions were lifted, and employ several tricks to get the elusive e-pass, but not everyone gets past the barriers. A 35-year-old van driver of Kurichi village, located nearly 30 km from Erode, learnt this the hard way. He had tried three times to visit Thoothukudi during the lockdown to meet a prospective bride chosen by his parents, but failed to get a pass. In the fourth attempt, he submitted an application attaching a fake printed wedding card and found himself hauled up for an inquiry at the Erode Collectorate.
The wedding “invitation” was used to bolster his case to go from Erode to Thoothukudi, although the purpose was only to explore the marriage alliance. Alert officials found that not everything added up, thanks to a detail in the card. An official at Thoothukudi Collectorate noticed that the man from Bhavani taluk gave the place of wedding as Chennai in the invitation, but sought to travel to Thoothukudi for the wedding ostensibly scheduled for the next week.
Erode Collectorate sources said the driver and his friend used an Internet centre at Kuruppanaicken-palayam village three days ago and applied for the e-pass. On Thursday, he got a call from an official at the Thoothukudi Collectorate, who had verified his details. “When will I get the e-pass,” the applicant asked the official, to which he got an instant reply: “You have submitted a fake wedding invitation as a supporting document.” An order to appear for inquiry at the Erode Collectorate on Friday followed.
At the inquiry the driver told officials that the idea behind the invitation came from the staff of the Internet centre. When he explained his predicament, and said he had already tried thrice, he claimed they told him that only if he submitted a marriage invitation would he get an e-pass for Thoothukudi.
The applicant then pleaded that the staff at the browsing centre appeared to have prepared a fake invitation and uploaded it, and that he had no knowledge about it. His three failed applications had given the reason as “travel for looking for marriage alliance.”
As he was frustrated, his friend had encouraged him to seek the help of the browsing centre.