Amritsar police book Delhi-based travel agent

The Amritsar police on Wednesday registered an FIR against an immigration agent operating from Delhi.

Pardeep Kumar, along with another unidentified person, was booked on the complaint of 23-year-old Jatinder Singh of Bandala village in Jandiala Guru. He was among the 117 illegal immigrants who were sent back by the US on a military plane that landed at Sri Guru Ram Dass Ji International airport on February 15.

In the police complaint, he alleged that Pardeep Kumar had taken Rs 50 lakh from him to send him to US legally.

The police said Pardeep Kumar and his unknown accomplice has been booked under section 143 (3), 318 (4) and section 13 (1) of Punjab Travel Professions Regulation Act, 2014.

Jatinder Singh said that despite being a baptized Sikh, he was forced to eat non-vegetarian food, had to swim in sea waters apart from cramming into a suffocating chamber on a boat for days on his six-month- long journey to US. He is the son of a retired Army soldier. He had left his home at Bandala village in Amritsar’s Jandiala area on September 18 last year and was caught on January 27 after he jumped a 25-foot high iron wall to enter the US from Mexico, an effort during which several of his companions broke their limbs.

Earlier, he had applied for work permits of Canada and Australia but they were rejected. He then brokered a deal with an immigration agent from Haryana and paid Rs 40 lakh, for which his father Gurbachan Singh had to sell the only piece of land of one acre that they owned.

On Tuesday, Mehta police booked an immigration agent who operated from Haryana for duping Harpreet Singh of Chhota Ghanshampura village, a US deportee.

Arsh Kahlon, a resident of Ajnala and operating from the neighbouring state, had allegedly taken Rs 43 lakh from him to send him to the US legally. He was booked under Section 318 (4) of BNS. Harpreet Singh said his parents had borrowed money from relatives and taken a loan at higher interest to pay the travel agent.