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Home Office blunder leaves doc without passport

Jul 5 2009 by Paul Loraine, Sunday Sun

“I am at my wits’ end and I don’t know what to do next. I have a very prestigious fellowship to go to in Edinburgh later this summer and it rests on getting this passport.

“At no point did I think it was going to take as long as this.

“I was then told this is a very strange situation where my valid documents don’t match the Home Office computer records and I tried to suggest to them there may have been an error in their data entry which they refused to acknowledge.

“I was told that they needed to do some checks. It’s taken so long it’s really causing me problems.”

As his passport is with the Home Office, Mr Bhattacharya has missed several opportunities to present his work at international congresses and has not been able to go on planned visits to see his family in India.

“I can’t believe it’s still going on. To have all the documents there and still to be faced with this situation is really galling,” he said.

A spokesman for the Home Office said the matter was being investigated and they could make no further comment.

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