Nepal has urged Portugal to provide a one-time opportunity to hundreds of Nepalis facing serious legal trouble over fake stamps on police clearance certificates.

Shatrudhwan Prasad Sharma Pokharel, minister counsellor at the Nepali Embassy in Lisbon, said that they drew the attention of the concerned Portuguese authorities and urged reconsideration of the affected individuals’ cases and permission to submit new official documents, if necessary.

“We have informed the Portuguese authorities and requested them to review the situation of the victims,” he said. “We have asked that they should be allowed to clarify their status by presenting sufficient evidence, including new documents bearing genuine authentication stamps.”

Hundreds of Nepalis hoping to secure legal status in Portugal are in trouble after fake authentication stamps were found on genuine police clearance certificates issued by Nepal Police.

The forged stamps and signatures of the Portuguese Embassy in New Delhi and the Nepali Embassy were detected during the evaluation of applications for Temporary Residence Cards (TRC).

Portugal’s Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), the authority responsible for granting legal status to immigrants, concluded that the fake stamps constituted misuse of the immigration system. As a result, the TRC process for a large number of Nepalis has been halted, affecting nearly 2,000 individuals.

AIMA has sent emails to dozens of Nepalis, instructing them to leave the country within a specified deadline. Some emails reportedly warned of up to one year’s imprisonment and deportation.

Pokharel said a review of applications lodged at the embassy indicates that the Nepalis were victims of agents. He explained that the fraud occurred during a period when the honorary consulate of Nepal had been closed, and the Nepali Embassy in Lisbon had not yet been established.

“During the gap between the closure of the honorary consulate and the establishment of the embassy in Lisbon, some agents placed fake stamps on genuine documents and defrauded applicants,” he said, adding that hundreds of Nepali nationals were affected.

The embassy has appealed to Portuguese authorities to take a humanitarian view of the matter and allow the victims to regularise their status by submitting properly authenticated documents.