The Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday re-registered four cases related to human trafficking through Nedumbassery and Thiruvananthapuram airports. The CBI filed the report before the Ernakulam Chief Judicial Magistrate Court here.
The CBI on Thursday took over the cases that were being investigated by the Crime Branch in Ernakulam. The State Police Chief had suspended 16 police officers, including two SPs, in connection with the case. The CBI’s First Information Report, which is based on the Crime Branch’s investigation so far, does not name all of them.
The first case is related to the passport fraud in which a woman from Kazhakuttam was detained at the Mumbai airport after she was found to be travelling using fake documents. Lissy Sojan, suspected to be the main figure in the trafficking racket, is an accused in the case. The other accused are Bindu, Santha, Sethulal, and Shaji, believed to be her associates in the racket, and SI Raju Mathew, who allegedly helped take the woman from Nedumbassery using the fake document.
The second and third cases were filed after tracing the original holder of the passport that the victim from Kazhakuttam was using. The passport had belonged to a woman from Kattappana, who was allegedly taken to Sharjah and forced into prostitution by Lissy Sojan after being promised a job as a maid in the house of a Malayali in Dubai. Cases for rape and trafficking of the two victims have been registered against several persons.
The fourth case is based on a complaint by Abdul Samad, whose passport copy was allegedly used by police officer A.P. Ajeeb to obtain mobile phone SIM cards. Investigation into Ajeeb’s activities revealed the involvement of several police officers in trafficking men and women to the Gulf through airports at Nedumbassery and Thiruvananthapuram airports.
Lissy Sojan was arrested from Aluva in May 2013. She had allegedly been operating a trafficking racket from Kerala to the Gulf for around 10 years.
