In a major crackdown, the Delhi police’s elite crime branch has busted a human trafficking racket in which at least 100 people were sent to the US over the past three years.
NEW DELHI: In a major crackdown, the Delhi police’s elite crime branch has busted a human trafficking racket in which at least 100 people were sent to the US over the past three years.
Crime branch sources claim that additional investigations may point the finger at a few people associated with the American embassy in Delhi, who are involved in the racket.
Additional commissioner of police (crime branch) Satyender Garg said that three arrests had been made from various parts of the city on February 20, following a tip-off.
“We had specific information that some touts were running a human trafficking racket by forging documents for US visa applications. Our team arrested one Pawan Mishra who led us to the alleged mastermind of the racket- Ajay Shukla,” said Garg.
Shukla would apply for a dozen visas every month and managed to get three to four, said Garg. “He would charge applicants upto Rs5 lakh if their application were cleared. If rejected, he charged the ‘processing fee’ of about Rs20,000.”
The crime branch nabbed Shukla from the vicinity of the US embassy and also arrested one Gursahib Singh, a visa applicant. “The documents in Singh’s possession, except his passport, were forged by Shukla,” Garg said.
Police say Shukla ran the racket from government quarters in Safdurjang Hospital. However, the police are yet to ascertain how he was given the premises and for how long he operated from there.
“We have asked hospital authorities for these details,” Garg said.
Garg has denied the possibility of people from within the embassy being a part of the racket, saying, “A majority of documents recovered by us prove that the passport and visas were original. However, all other documents that an applicant has to provide at the time of application were forged, which prima facie doesn’t point fingers at people in the embassy.”
A senior official of the crime branch said, “As of now, we may not have conclusive proof against anybody associated with the embassy being involved. However, the suspicion of an insider’s involvement still lurks.”
The police have also recovered forged documents for atleast another 102 applicants, which, the police feel were due to be processed by the embassy.
This is one of the three biggest human trafficking rackets busted in New Delhi over the last one year. In November, the police had arrested a sacked US embassy official for allegedly helping atleast 30 people to apply for visas on forged documents.
The accused, Sanjay Kaushik allegedly downloaded visa application forms from the embassy website which he filled up for them.
In April last year, the arrest of the BJP MP Babubhai Katara blew the lid off a major human trafficking racket and threw up the names of at least four other lawmakers - Ramswarup Koli, Mitrasen Yadav, Mohammad Tahir Khan and Ashok Rawat involved in the racket.
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