The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Human smuggling racket kingpin held

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 24, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Human smuggling racket kingpin held

Staff Reporter

Rajender Kumar Pitti is fifth person to be arrested in the case

HYDERABAD: Rajender Kumar Pitti, the alleged kingpin in the sensational human smuggling racket involving two TRS rebel MLAs Kasipeta Lingaiah, Soyam Bapu Rao and BJP MP Babubhai Kataria, was nabbed here on Saturday.

Pitti is the fifth person arrested by Hyderabad police in the racket. Earlier, TRS rebel legislator Mr. Lingaiah, passport broker Mohd. Rasheed Ali and ex-corporator Mohd. Muzaffar Ali Khan -- both hailing from city -- and a broker from Gujarat, Bharat Bhai Patel, were arrested in the case since it was registered in April, 2007.

Police said Rasheed Ali, with financial assistance from Pitti and Khan, had been operating the racket for the past few years. Pitti, however, denied involvement, when he was presented before media persons.

He said he learnt a fortnight ago that police were looking out for him and hence came back to city to apply for bail only to be caught by the police.

Both the Delhi and the Hyderabad police had been on the lookout for Pitti since the racket involving Mr. Kataria came to light. But Pitti managed to fly to America.

A separate case was registered against Mr. Rao following reports that he had secured passports in the name of his two children for others. While Hyderabad Detective Department (DD) investigated the case involving Lingaiah, Mr. Rao’s was handed over to the Crime Investigation Department. Pitti arrived in city on August 19 and secured anticipatory bail in the case being investigated by the CID.

The DD officials launched a hunt and picked Pitti up from his brother’s house at Moghulpura in old city. The Delhi police was informed of the arrest.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh