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.
Punjab BJP President Ashwani Sharma told IANS that to control infighting in its party state unit, the Congress leadership made Channi ji (Charanjit Singh Channi) the Punjab Chief Minister but insulted the Dalit community by not allowing him to lead the party in the upcoming state Assembly polls.
The government and drug controller's office will have to take a decision on the third booster dose based on data and cases as times goes on and including how effective the vaccine is on the Delta virus variant, he added.
The petitioner said the state had passed the Punjab Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act of 2006 but it has never implemented it in case of appointment in judicial services.
In the run up to the assembly polls scheduled early next year, the BJP Punjab unit has launched several campaigns to strengthen its organisational structure at ground level. Sharma said that work is progressing at good pace for formation of a 21-member committee at each polling booth.
According to Sidhu, the department has issued sanctions under five phases for purchasing the straw management machines with subsidies ranging from 50 to 80 per cent.
