Trafficking scam widens

The human smuggling racket, with MPs working as carriers to smuggle people out on forged documents, is becoming bigger and murkier with investigations pointing to the role of at least two more sitting Lok Sabha members.

The two MPs under the scanner after the questioning of three smugglers arrested over the past 24 hours are BJP’s Ramswaroop Koli and BSP’s Mohammad Tahir Khan who represent Bayana in Rajasthan and Sultanpur in UP, respectively. Another MP who, the arrested persons have confessed, was involved is Ram Avadh, former BSP member of Lok Sabha, who passed away a while ago.

In fact, Sundarlal Yadav, the smugglers’ conduit for MPs, had told the interrogators that the protagonists had tried to rope in even the former cabinet minister, Telangana Rashtriya Samiti leader K Chandrashekar Rao. A livid Rao rebutted the charge in Hyderabad.

Yadav, who was picked up by the police on Saturday, claimed that Rashid, the Hyderabad-based travel agent suspected to be the mastermind of the racket, had taken him to Rao. Yadav also told members of the Crime Branch of Delhi Police that Rashid was known to Mohan Murthy, Rao’s personal aide. The bond then forged saw Yadav introducing Rashid to Koli and Khan.

Besides Yadav, two more persons, Rajendra Kumar Gampa, alleged PA of arrested MP Babubhai Katara, and his cousin sister Kiran Dhar, who is pursuing a diploma in travel and tourism from New Delhi’s Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, have been arrested. Both are from Hyderabad. While their questioning is still continuing, the Crime Branch team feels the dimensions of the case may turn out to be bigger than what they had expected when the BJP MP from Dahod was caught trying to take out a woman and a boy to Canada passing them off as his wife and son.

The initial picture on the basis of Yadav’s testimony points to a Hyderabad-based operation with travel agent Rashid as lynchpin. Rashid would, through Sundarlal and possibly others, approach MPs to take people out on their passports.

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee may raise the matter of MPs’ involvement in human trafficking at an all-party meeting scheduled for April 25 on the eve of resumption of the budget session.