Residents of rural areas an easy target for illegal travel agents in Doaba region

JALANDHAR:Aspiring to live a better life by going abroad, rural dwellers are a soft target for the unauthorised travel agents compared to urban people in the Doaba region, according to the police record. It is worth mentioning here that of the 27 Iraq victims from Punjabi, 13 people were from rural areas of Doaba.

Despite the fact that over 250 FIRs were lodged in the past one year from April 31, 2017 to March 31, 2018 in the region against travel agents on charges of duping innocent people on the pretext of sending them abroad, the Punjab Police seem less interested in arresting them as they have nabbed only a few accused.

As per information, in rural areas, the Kapurthala police have registered 54 cases against 110 travel agents, but managed to arrest only 22 of them from April 31, 2017 to March 31, 2018.

In the same span, the Hoshiarpur police registered 48 cases and arrested 14 people out of the 70 people booked. The SBS Nagar police have registered 30 cases against 52 people. Only 11 have been arrested so far.

Similarly, the Jalandhar rural and commissionerate police have arrested 34 people out of the 154, who were booked in 104 cases in a year. As per the police record, in most cases, agents had duped people on the pretext of sending them to Dubai, Malaysia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Canada and the United States.

The police have failed to arrest most of the travel agents, who have been booked for cheating and are also dilly-dallying on declaring them as proclaimed offenders (POs).

Surjit Singh Mainka, 30, Chuhawali village in Adampur was among the 39 Indians killed in Iraq, was duped twice by the travel agent before he finally went to Iraq in 2013 by giving him ₹ 2 lakh.

Even a complaint was lodged with the Jalandhar rural police in 2013, but no action was initiated. Travel agent Rajiv Kumar of Gopal Nagar, Jalandhar, agreed to return ₹2 lakh to the family after five years, following pressure by local police on Monday during cremation of Mainka.

“Most of them are from rural areas, and are duped by the unauthorised travel agents, on the pretext of sending them aboard. The FIRs could be more in number at urban police stations as most of the travel agents have their temporary offices in city areas,” inspector general (IG) Arpit Shukla said.

The IG said in most cases, illegal travel agents leave the state after duping people, who mostly belonged to rural areas and are illiterate. “I have directed the SSP to launch a special crackdown drive against unauthorised agents this month,” he said.

In the district, there are about 240 registered travel agents and SBS Nagar has only 64 registered agents.

OF THE 27 IRAQ VICTIMS FROM PUNJAB WHOSE MORTAL REMAINS ARRIVED TWO DAYS AGO 13 WERE FROM RURAL AREAS OF DOABA