Gujarat cops to question pax of flight returned from France to trace 'agents'

Passengers of a plane, which was grounded in France for four days over suspected human trafficking. Pics/PTI

Gujarat Police are launching a probe into a suspected illegal immigration network including "agents" linked to flights arriving from France. According to a senior official, the majority of the passengers aboard an Airbus A340 that arrived in Mumbai from France carrying 276 passengers, mostly Indians, were from Gujarat, stated a report in PTI.

The report further stated that CID Crime teams have been created to acquire information from travellers on promises made by these "agents" who allegedly assisted with illegal entry into the United States and other countries.

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Superintendent of Police, CID (Crime) Sanjay Kharat told PTI, "The CID crime wants to take action against agents who had promised help to the victims to enter the US and other countries (illegally). We have formed four teams which will get information from the victims regarding promises made to them by these agents."

Adding that most passengers of the chartered plane were from Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana and Anand districts, he added, "Police will coordinate with the passengers when they reach Gujarat from Mumbai to find out the agents and agencies involved and whether documents provided to them to migrate to the US and other countries were forged."

The investigation aims to learn more about the breadth of such illegal immigration activities and to identify persons attempting to move through this route. According to Superintendent of Police, CID (Crime), Sanjay Kharat, while preliminary information about the participating agents has been acquired, detailed insights will depend on interrogating the relevant passengers.

Kharat said that smaller agents functioning at the village and district levels are controlled by a higher-ranking mastermind working on an international scale,

"The agents working at the village and district levels are small players controlled by a kingpin who works at the international level. Different agencies use different modus operandi based on the requirements of persons seeking to migrate like whether they require forged documents etc, and rates are fixed accordingly," Kharat said.

The flight, which was initially scheduled to arrive in Nicaragua, was stopped in France owing to suspicions of human trafficking, prompting a court inquiry. Immigration officials in Mumbai examined several passengers but did not detain any, letting them leave the airport by 11.30 am on Tuesday.

With agency inputs