Overnight raids at the residences of the BJP MP led to the recovery of 12 passports even as police continued to look for his wife and sons.
NEW DELHI: Twelve passports have been recovered from properties belonging to BJP MP Babubhai Katara during raids carried out in Gujarat by the police in the past 24 hours.
“We suspect the passports found at his house were used to illegally send people abroad,” a senior Delhi police officer said. The police raided Katara’s house in his ancestral village of Chitrodia in Dahod, and another in Jhalod.
The police said they were also trying to locate Katara’s wife, Shardaben, and their three sons. The three have been in hiding since Katara was arrested on Wednesday.
The police said they were verifying the statements made by Katara’s close aide Surendralal Yadav. “We are going through the travel records of the four MPs whom Yadav had named,” the officer said. “We will take at least two days. There is no point in questioning these politicians without verifying the facts.”
The Delhi police, along with Gujarat authorities, also froze Katara’s three bank accounts in Dahod.
The human trafficking case came to light on April 18 when Katara was arrested, along with Paramjit Kaur and Amarjit, a 15-year-old boy, by immigration officials at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Officials had discovered that Kaur was travelling on the passport belonging to Katara’s wife, and Amarjit was using the one issued to Katara’s son. Investigations revealed that Katara had made several such trips abroad, ferrying people illegally for hefty sums of money.
The case took a twist on Saturday when Yadav accused four MPs of being involved in the trafficking racket. He named Ram Swarup Koli, BJP MP from Bayana (Rajasthan); Mohammad Tahir Khan, a BSP MP from Sultanpur (Uttar Pradesh); Mitrasen Yadav, an SP MP from Faisabad; and the late parliamentarian Ram Avadh.
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