Human trafficking case- police grill BSP MP

Investigations into the human trafficking case appeared to have made some headway on Monday as police finally questioned a BSP MP, whose name had figured in the emigration racket along with thee other lawmakers, who failed to turn up.

Investigations into the human trafficking case appeared to have made some headway on Monday as police finally questioned a BSP MP, whose name had figured in the emigration racket along with thee other lawmakers, who failed to turn up.

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BSP MP from Misrikh, Ashok Kumar Rawat, whose name cropped up during the interrogation of Sunder Lal Yadav, an alleged middleman arrested in the high profile case, was grilled for nearly an hour by Crime Branch officials after he presented himself in response to their notice.

However, the other three MPs -- Mitrasen Yadav and Mohammed Tahir Khan, both from BSP, and Ramswaroop Koli (BJP) -- did not turn for questioning despite being summoned by the police to appear before it on Monday.

Investigators sought to know whether Rawat knew Yadav or Rashid, a Hyderabad-based travel agent, who is also under the scanner of the Delhi Police and arrested by Andhra police last week. Yadav had told a court in the Capital last month that he had introduced Rashid to the MP.

They also inquired about his visits abroad but did not verify his travel documents. The MP, who allegedly helped smuggle out persons on forged passports in the names of his relatives, came with his lawyers.

He is understood to have told the police that he did not know Rashid or Yadav. "He has been summoned as a witness in the case and not as an accused and we are totally cooperating with the investigation," Rawat's lawyer Harjot Singh said.

The alleged involvement of MPs in the trafficking scandal came to light after the arrest of BJP lawmaker Babubhai Katara at the airport here last month while trying to smuggle a woman and a teenaged boy out of the country in his wife and son's passports.