Two Ambala agents booked on deported Mohali youth’s plaint
The duo, including a woman, is already facing FIRs for trying to send another Mohali youth to the US illegally though the donkey route in July last year
Mohali police have booked two travel agents, Gurjinder Singh and Mukul, both residents of Ambala Cantt, Haryana, for allegedly sending an 18-year-old youth, Taranveer Singh of Khera village, to the USA through illegal channels. This is the second case of immigration fraud registered against the duo in 10 days. The new FIR was filed on Monday by Majri police after Taranveer Singh was among the 117 deportees returned to India on Saturday in the second military flight of the US government.
With the new case filed at Majri Police Station, the number of FIRs registered in Punjab against travel agents, for illegally sending Indians abroad, have gone up to 11. Station house officer (SHO) Suneel Kumar said no arrests had yet been made in the case. The matter remains under investigation and they are also conducting raids outside Punjab, Kumar added.
The FIR has been registered under Sections 143 (trafficking of person), 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), 318(4) (cheating and dishonestly transferring property) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Section 24 of the Immigration Act.
Taranveer’s deportation came shortly after he had landed in America after months of ordeal. SHO Kumar mentioned that Taranveer was arrested by American authorities on around January 27 and deported to India in the second military flight that landed in Amritsar on Saturday. Taranveer came in contact with both the agents last year and had handed over his passport to them in July.
A harrowing journey
In his complain, Taranveer mentioned how Gurjinder, whom he met through his friend Gursaran Singh, had made false promises of sending him to America via a legal route, either through a flight or a cruise ship, in exchange for ₹45 lakh. Taranveer, who handed over his passport to Gurjinder on July 10, 2024, had to spend days without food on his way to America. He also added that he had to stay in Columbia for four months, follow dangerous routes, while also enduring agents’ abuses.
In the previous case, complainant Mamta Rani of Phase-11 told police that Rinku, whom she had met through a friend, had offered to send her son Manav, 20, a BCom student, to the US in July last year. Manav had got stuck in Mexico on the way to the United States through a “donkey route”. The accused, including a woman, were booked under Sections 318(4), 61(2) of the BNS and Section 13 of Punjab Travel Professionals (Regulation) Act, 2014 at Phase-11 Police Station.