Fake travel agent booked for fleecing local resident of Rs 14.3 lakh

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 27

The district administration has failed to nail fake travel agents who had opened their offices in order to fleece innocent people looking for greener pastures.

Lalit Kishore, a resident of the Guru Nanak Nagar area, Batala Road, here was duped of Rs14.3 lakh by a ‘fake’ travel agent Punit Dhahotra, having an office in Ranjit Avenue.

It took over two years of struggle for registering the FIR, while the victim made rounds of Economic Offence Wing and CIA staff to which the Police Commissioner had earlier forwarded the complaint for investigations.

Upset of the inaction by the officials of two wings, the victim again approached Police Commissioner Dr Sukhchain Singh Gill demanding justice in October last year. This time the police marked a probe to Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Punjab Bureau of Investigations) Kirpal Singh who recommended registration of an FIR against the alleged fraudster in his report.

The probe pointed out that the accused, who runs a travel agency in the name of Green Planet in the Ranjit Avenue area, was not an authorised travel agent. He used to fleece the innocent people in the name of sending them abroad in search of greener pastures.

The investigations confirmed swindling of Rs 21.30 lakh from the victim out of which the accused had returned Rs 7 lakh.

After taking the legal opinion, the police have registered a case under Section 420 of the IPC and Section 13 of the Punjab Travel Professionals Act against him while further investigations are under progress. No arrest has been made till now.

Concerned over the repeated instances of fraud by fake travel agents, the Punjab government has made it mandatory for the travel agents to get them registered with the respective district administrations.

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