My India Today

Accusing the Punjab police (Indian Province) of conniving with travel agents who have duped several Punjabi youths of Milions, some ‘victims’, who held a press conference in Jalandhar City on Thursday, demanded suspension of police officials involved and urged the state Government to take action against travel agents. Gurcharan Singh of Puranewala village in Moga district said he had paid Rs 1.6 Million to a travel agent, Paramjit Singh, who promised him employment Visa to Canada. But Gurcharan was taken to Canada illegally where he was caught and put in jail for eight months and eventually deported.

“I registered a case against the agent here, but the agent got me implicated in a false narcotics case and even got my minor son arrested,” he claimed. “I was implicated in a case in Ferozepur area on the basis that an unclaimed bag was found in a bus in which a driving licence in my name was alleged to have been found along with 350 gm opium,” said Gurcharan.

“But at the time at which the police claimed to have recovered the bag, I was present in a Moga court in connection with the case I had registered against Paramjit,” he said. He said the absence of action against the travel agent hinted towards a nexus between the travel agent and the police.

In a similar case, Harjinder Singh of Khodebate village in Gurdaspur revealed that he and his brother had paid Rs 23 lakh to a travel agent in Batala to go to the UK but when he failed to do anything to send them there, they demanded the money back. “The agent asked us to come along with some panchayat members as witnesses and take the money, but they got the 11 people who had gone to collect money arrested in a case of kidnapping,” he alleged.

Ravinder Singh, a boy who managed to come back to India from Indonesia after being duped by a travel agent, termed the Indian embassy’s attitude as “pathetic”.

Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, president of the LBP, who had arranged the press conference for the victims, said the CM had assured him on April 24, 2007, of appointing a special ADGP to deal with such cases, but nothing had been done.