Parents, travel agents sent 20 children abroad illegally

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 27

The desire for sending their children abroad has exposed how parents connived with notorious travel agents to send their children to the US, UK and Canada.

The modus operandi followed was that travel agents forged the birth certificates of children and contacted couples having foreign visas to pose as the children’s real parents for arranging visas.

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The Jalandhar Commissionerate has identified 20 such children, all below 14 years, who had been trafficked abroad. Parents of such children paid between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 25 lakh to the agents.

After exposing the nexus, the police have booked five couples who took 20 children abroad by changing their real identity and showing themselves as their natural parents.

Out of 20 children, the real identity of only three children has been confirmed so far.

ADCP Vivek Sheel Soni told The Tribune that the parents of only three children were identified while efforts were on to identify the remaining ones. “It came to our notice that that parents of these 20 children connived with agents to send their wards abroad. Apart from registering FIR’s against the fake parents, the real parents of these children will be booked for fraud,” he said.

In April, the police had identified the first fake couple as Sarabjit Sharma and his wife Nisha Sharma who took seven children to UK, USA and Canada. The children were Nitin Sharma, Sourav Sharma, Sham Sharma, Satpal Sharma, Vansh Sharma, Ajay Sharma and Vijay Sharma.

Sham’s real name was Pritpal Singh of Nadala. His father Satpal was arrested. He paid Rs 28 lakh by selling three acres to pay Sarabjit for sending his son abroad. The boy also cropped his hair and converted his surname from Singh to Sharma. The accused, Sarbjit Sharma, was recently arrested by the police while his wife Nisha Bhardwaj and kingpin of the gang, Sukhwinder Singh, were still at large. Sarabjit owns Tania Tour and Travels while Sukhwinder owns Flywell Tourist Service, near the bus stand.

Now, a second couple, identified as Amandeep Singh and his wife Harjinder Kaur of GTB Nagar took three children - Jasbir Singh, Ajit Singh, Gurjet Singh - to USA by showing themselves as the real parents of the children. Ajit’s real name was Jobanpreet Singh while identity of remaining two was unknown. His real father, Sarabjeet Singh, has been arrested.

The third couple who took children abroad has been identified as Davinder Kumar and his wife Suman Lata of Santokhpura locality. They took Mohit Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Vijay Kumar and Varun Kumar to USA. Ajay’s real name was Jagjit Singh, son of Sukhjinder of Bholath Sharki village in Kapurthala, while identity of the remaining three kids is still unknown.

The fourth couple to do so was Karan Sharma and his wife Rakhi Sharma of Ali Mohalla. They took along Anil Sharma, Ajay Sharma and Ravi Sharma to the USA. The real identity of the children was unknown.

The fifth couple has been identified by the police as Deepak Modi and his wife Komal Modi of Modia Mohalla. Deepak is in the iron ore business. They took along Pankaj Modi, Abhi Modi and Suraj Modi. In this case also, the real identity of the children was unknown.

All there couple managed to get the passport of children issued by showing them as their real parents because no stringent verification is required while getting passports for minors. Forged birth certificates played a pivotal role in this scam, the police said.