The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Hyderabad turns into a conduit for human trafficking

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 26, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Hyderabad turns into a conduit for human trafficking

Marri Ramu

SB officials are on tenterhooks as the Katara case progresses

HYDERABAD: With the Delhi police scouring the city, the Regional Passport Office, Secunderabad, and even pinning down a Lakdikapul travel agency in connection with the sensational human trafficking case, the big question remains why Hyderabad?

The city has become the conduit for people across the country to realise their dream of reaching their El Dorado- courtesy lax officials and their deliberately looking the other way at the Begumpet airport.

Officials on tenterhooks

Some officials of the Special Branch (SB) of Hyderabad police, who are entrusted with the responsibility of checking travel documents at the airport, are on tenterhooks as investigation into the Katara case makes inroads.

Call it oversight or deliberate act, allowing air passengers with fake or forged travel documents, points the needle of suspicion at them. It is often travel agents who make the fraudulent passage easier colluding with SB officials manning the immigration counters.

And this is not the first time their role has come under the scanner. SB officials of Hyderabad police were suspended more than once for omissions and commissions in scrutinising travel documents of passengers at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.

No criminal cases

In those cases, no criminal cases were registered but only departmental inquiries ordered. No one knows the fate of those inquiries.

"Had they taken a serious note of such cases earlier and registered criminal cases, probably such human trafficking rackets could have been checked," a police officer remarked.

A week ago, an unmarried Gujarati woman claiming herself a Telugu housewife was caught trying to fly to America using a passport secured with a fake name and address.

This is a common modus operandi adopted to fly abroad.

Though released in a fictitious name, the passport is genuine and hence it would be difficult for the SB officials to detect at the airport.

Collecting genuine passports of other persons and substituting photographs of the original persons with those of others is another method as was the case in the Katara episode.

Flying with fake passport is another.

"Most passengers and travel agents avoid this for fear of being caught since Immigration officials can make out fake ones using ultra violet lamps."

Oversight?

Unless it is an oversight, no passenger with tampered travel document shall be cleared. Now the question is if oversight of SB officials helped the offenders organise the human trafficking racket or any other factor influenced them?

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