From rxpgnews.com
Punjab travel agents raided, MPs avoid Delhi Police
By IANS,
Apr 24, 2007 - 8:03:47 PM
New Delhi/Jalandhar, April 24 - Police probing the global human trafficking racket involving Indian MPs Tuesday raided homes and offices of travel agents in Punjab as four other MPs linked to the saga failed to turn up for questioning at the Delhi Police headquarters.
The latest developments that followed the dramatic arrest of Bharatiya Janata Party - MP Babubhai Katara came even as authorities in Dubai deported 36 men from Punjab and Haryana for traveling on fake documents.
Delhi Police arrested Harbhajan Singh, a travel agent from Maqsoodan area of Jalandhar, and recovered 34 passports from him besides fake visas of some countries, letterheads of central government ministries and also fake stamps.
The police, who were following the leads provided by aides of the arrested MP, seized computers, scanners and other equipment used to prepare fake visas and other travel documents.
The Delhi policemen, assisted by their Punjab counterparts, also raided some travel agents in Kapurthala in clear indication that the human smuggling racket involving top politicians was more deep rooted than thought earlier.
With Katara, who has been suspended by the BJP from its parliamentary wing, in police custody, Delhi Police's Crime Branch asked four other MPs -- Mohammed Tahir Khan, Ashok Rawat and Mitra Sen Yadav - and BJP's Ram Swarup Koli - to appear before them. All four failed to show up for questioning.
Replying to the police notice, Khan and Rawat said they were presently engaged in campaigning for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and could join the probe only after May 8 when the month-long balloting ends.
But there was no reply from Mitrasen Yadav, a long-time communist from Faizabad who first joined the Samajwadi Party and later shifted allegiance to BSP.
Koli said he was in his hometown Bayana in Rajasthan and promised to join the police investigation soon.
'We have received written replies from three MPs - Khan, Rawat and Koli - seeking more time to appear before the investigating team. There was no reply from - Yadav,' Delhi Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.
'We are waiting for - Yadav's reply and further action will only be decided depending on the requirements. Most likely a fresh notice will be sent to him,' Bhagat added.
The notices followed allegations by Sunder Lal Yadav, a travel agent who was arrested April 21 with Rajendra Kumar Gampa and their female accomplice Kiran Dhar in the wake of Katara's arrest shortly before he was to fly out to Canada with a woman and a teenage boy traveling on his wife's and son's diplomatic passports.
Delhi Police also appealed to the ministry of external affairs to widen the ambit of their investigation by approaching some Western embassies.
Sunder Yadav told a New Delhi court that Khan and Koli were the central figures in the racket of smuggling people abroad on diplomatic passports of MPs' family members or forged documents. Sunder Yadav also named Mitrasen Yadav and Rawat as accomplices in the crime.
A court hearing Katara's case Tuesday refused bail to him. At the same time, the BJP tried to wash its off him, saying his actions could not reflect on the party.
A BJP leader told IANS: 'Now that we have suspended Katara, we have nothing do with him. Let the police do whatever it thinks is proper.'
In what could be a related development, 36 Indians who flew into Dubai apparently with fake stamps on their visas were deported to India. Police think a travel agent in Chandigarh facilitated their travel.
An embarrassed Indian, which flew the group to Dubai, denied that the airline was at fault and said they were investigating the matter.
'It was not only the airline's fault. The people also managed to escape the immigration officials,' an airline official told IANS on condition of anonymity.
'The Dubai immigration officials told us that the stamps on their visas were fake. We were asked to fly them back,' he said.
It is the first time that so many people were detected travelling on fake visas on any one Indian flight. The Dubai authorities have slapped a huge fine on the Indian airline.
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