New Delhi, July 25 (IANS) Two people, working as passport agents, were arrested for duping people on the pretext of sending them abroad, a Delhi Police official said Monday.
The accused, identified as Jaswinder Singh and Harmesh Chand, were involved in arranging fake Russian visas along with their counterparts in UP and Punjab. They were operating in rural areas of Punjab and were involved in settling down people in Russia by unfair means.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, IGI Airport, Tanu Sharma said a complaint was received from the IGI Airport Immigration Department that one passenger came to immigration counter seeking departure immigration to Abu Dhabi.
During scrutiny of his travel documents, it was found that a Russian business visa affixed on his passport was fake with no security features.
During interrogation, the passenger disclosed that earlier he wanted to go to Russia for work purposes and came in contact with an agent, namely Jaswinder Singh, who took Rs 1 lakh from him and provided him with a fake Russian visa.
"In view of the scam of duping people on the pretext of sending them to foreign countries and to bust the whole nexus, a team was constituted with the specific tasks to locate the movement of the accused travel agent and to nab him," the DCP said.
The team, after technical and manual surveillance, zeroed down on Jaswinder Singh and subsequently arrested him.
"He disclosed that he was working as a sub agent and was in contact with the main agent Harmesh Chand for the last 2 years. He was working as a commission agent for Harmesh Chand, who affixed a fake visa on the passport of the passenger," the official said.
During sustained interrogation, it was found that Harmesh Chand was the mastermind of the entire racket. The police team then traced the location of the accused to Jalandhar from where he was nabbed.
The official said that Harmesh Chand disclosed that he used to arrange fake visas from an agent who is a resident of Varanasi. Further efforts are being made to trace and arrest him, the official added.
The area around the Intelligence Bureau office has been sealed and investigation is in progress. A bomb disposal and forensic squads have been positioned at the spot. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann spoke to Director General of Police V.K. Bhawra and sought details about the incident.
Notably, the police detained several people, including party workers, who were not allowing the SDMC to carry out the demolition drive at Shaheen Bagh. After the agitation was quelled, the bulldozer moved forward to demolish the illegal encroachment, an iron structure in front of a building. It is at this juncture that Khan reached the spot and was seen speaking to the officials.
Punjab shares a 553-km barbed-wire fenced international border with Pakistan which is under the vigil of nearly 135 BSF battalions. The drug network operates along the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India route.
Police are looking at this angle. The incident took place near Kengeri at 1 a.m. and the injured were shifted to nearby hospitals. According to the police, the bus had first hit the 4-feet tall road divider and then rammed into the Namma Metro Pillar number 545.
Chairing a meeting of the Special Task Force (STF) team led by its chief Harpreet Sidhu here, Mann said neither political persons nor officers would be spared if found conniving with the drug mafia. He told the police officers to work freely without any political pressure with a sharpened focus to make Punjab a drug-free state.
According to the SHO of Cantonment police station, Rajeev Singh, Ram Lakhan's wife informed the police that her husband had confessed to killing their son following a fight with her. A police team went looking for the 'body' but could not find the child.
