The Nagpur police has registered a case against ten couples for allegedly trafficking 60 minors and youths to the United Kingdom between 2007 and 2015 by posing them as their children.
The racket, considered of the biggest of central India, was exposed after the Immigration Enforcement International (IEI), a wing of the British High Commission, sent a detailed report to Nagpur Police in October 2017. The accused families were allegedly smuggling people into the UK as labourers and other workers for Rs 2 lakh each. According to the IEI report, most of the victims had now either gone underground or shifted to undisclosed locations in the UK.
The IEI has also seized and cancelled passports and visas recovered from some racketeers, before asking the Nagpur police to act against the families in question for alleged trafficking, forgery and violation of passport rules and regulations.
The British organisation had traced around 13 trafficked persons, one of whom — a minor— told officials that he had been sold by his aunt to one of the accused couples, who then sent him to UK through agents. The alleged victims, as per the IEI report, were sent on visit visas.
The accused used different facilitators or agents to prepare fake documents and records, based on forged certificates. They would procure passports to traffic minors and young adults. The IEI, in its report, had mentioned about a couple and even mentioned the date of birth of “their two children separated by only six months” that triggered suspicion.
{{/usCountry}}The accused used different facilitators or agents to prepare fake documents and records, based on forged certificates. They would procure passports to traffic minors and young adults. The IEI, in its report, had mentioned about a couple and even mentioned the date of birth of “their two children separated by only six months” that triggered suspicion.
{{/usCountry}}A couple Rulad Singh Gujjar and his wife Paramjeet reportedly showed as many as 19 persons as their children, attaching questionable records as credentials while filing applications.
The Gujjar family was grilled by IEI authorities, and have reportedly already admitted to helping several youngsters sneak into UK with passports made using fake documents.
The police had verified some certificates issued by the school named in the documents, but all of them were found to be fake.
The police had entrusted the investigation to the then ACP, crime, Somnath Waghchaure who subsequently retired. He had said most passports and visas were genuine, but the documents used to procure the same were highly questionable. “The racketeers used fake names and photographs on some documents to prove they were their children,” he had said in his report.