A travel agency owner and his employee were arrested in Delhi on Wednesday for allegedly arranging tickets in bulk for 27 people, including a Bangladeshi, who were apprehended at the airport here while trying to fly to Dubai with fake visas.
Police suspect a "rival visa racket" blew the lid on the matter by making calls to two airline call centres that these people were to board two flights to Dubai with fake visas.
CISF had detained the 27 people on Tuesday evening after Kingfisher and Jet Airways call centres received calls from anonymous persons that these people were to board two flights to Dubai with fake visas. The callers also claimed that the passengers may try to "hijack" the flights.
The arrests appear to have unearthed a racket involved in illegally sending workers to trouble-torn Iraq where their security is not assured, a senior police official said.
The 27 people -- 15 from West Bengal, six from Punjab, four from Haryana and one each from Delhi and Bangladesh -- were detained and later placed under arrest. The Bangladeshi national had an Indian passport procured allegedly through fraudulent means.
"There are masons, electricians and beldars in the group. They were to go Iraq from Dubai. They were promised jobs there," Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport) O P Mishra told reporters.
These people paid Rs 1-1.5 lakh for the visas to local contacts in their respective states. Their contacts asked them to approach a "contact" in the capital who arranged the tickets in bulk through Delhi-based Pan Travels.
"We have arrested the travel agency owner Rakesh Chopra and his employee Sunil Bisht," Mishra said. Police have registered separate cases against each of the 27 people under IPC sections of cheating and forgery.
The racket's contact in Delhi had arranged accommodation for these people in various parts of the city. Some people had even reached the city a fortnight ago, Mishra said.
"They were supposed to leave India a fortnight ago. But there were some problems with their papers and they had to delay their plans to reach Dubai. They were assured jobs in Iraq," he said.
Asked whether the 27 people were victims of the racket, Mishra said they were investigating the matter.
The racket was unearthed last evening following the calls -- first received at Kingfisher at around 12:00 pm and another 30 minutes later. Jet Airways received the call two hours later.
Police suspect that the calls were made by people belonging to a rival agency dealing in fake visas because they lost business.
The call to Jet Airways was made from Dubai and the caller had identified himself as Abhishek. Both the callers were well-versed with how security agencies at the airport function. They wanted to be sure that these people are caught and so they gave a hijack threat, sources said.
Normally such calls are made to the immigration officials, they said, pointing out that this time the callers contacted the call centres. The callers also alleged that those inolved in the racket were hand-in-glove with the immigration officials.
They made a hijack threat so that all agencies would get involved in it, the official said.
"It appeared that the callers were well-versed in the operations at the airport and how security drills were conducted. They wanted these people to be caught and for that used all possible ways," an official said.
All those arrested were from economically weaker sections of the society.
Soon after the calls were received, three teams of CISF were deployed in the international terminal to catch them and airline staff were briefed and provided with the PNR numbers of the suspect travellers.
"They were allowed to enter the airport and as soon as they approached the staff at the airline counters and produced their tickets, they were apprehended," a senior security official had said.
The official said the security personnel at the gates were also briefed about their PNR numbers. They identified the suspects and signalled to personnel inside the airport.
Both Jet and Kingfisher have handed over to the security agencies the recordings of the telephone calls they received. PTI
