Police in old city cracked the whip on travel agents duping unemployed persons with false assurances of providing jobs abroad, by arresting seven of them.
Twenty-four passports and other documents of job-seekers were seized from the arrested persons, the South zone DCP, Manish Kumar Sinha, said at a press conference. Though the travel agents were caught from different places, their modus operandi was same.
They would identify persons planning to go abroad – most of them to Gulf countries - for odd jobs. The agents would collect money ranging from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 1,00,000 from each person saying that he could earn that sum within a few months by working overseas.
“They neither help them find a job nor return the money taken. The agents would start avoiding the gullible job-seekers and threaten them with dire consequences if they insisted on returning money,” the DCP said. Moreover, the travel agents kept original passports of the unemployed persons with them. In some cases, they would threaten the job aspirant stating the passport would not be returned if the latter demanded repayment of money.
While Dabeerpura police arrested Shahnaz, 40, Mohd. Ijaz, 42, Ali Raza Hassan, 60, and Naushad Raza, 28, their counterparts in Hussainialam and Reinbazar caught Hamed Zubedi, 34, and Zahed Zubedi, 30, and Faqruddin, 42, respectively.
All the accused were remanded and presented before a local court.
