New Delhi: CBI files FIRs to trace people from Punjab, Haryana

New Delhi : The CBI has registered four separate cases of human trafficking related to people from Punjab and Haryana who had gone abroad for work but went missing, officials said. The CBI action resulted from a Punjab and Haryana High Court order directing the central agency to take over the probe in the cases of five petitioners who had approached it, they said.

The petitioners alleged that their kin were “allured to travel abroad” by travel agents either on fake documents or by trafficking routes and are missing or unheard.

The CBI has booked Haryana-based Neeta, Banti, Yudveer Bhati and Punjab-based Avtar Singh and Pradeep Kumar in separate cases filed by Daljit Singh, October Singh, Jaswant Singh and Maha Singh. Maha Singh alleged that his son Sombir went to work at Overseas Shipping Company in Yemen through Yudveer Rathi Defence Academy in Rohtak along with two other individuals.

After a year, only two accompanying persons returned but there was no trace of his son. Jaswant Singh alleged his son is missing since 2010. The counsel for the petitioners claimed that 105 people in Punjab are missing and there whereabouts are not known. She said the petitioners have made “repeated attempts” to approach the police for registering cases and trace their missing children but the “state instrumentalities have not taken any effective steps to locate them”.

Since the cases pertain to students and persons illegally moving out of the country, the jurisdiction of the state police is further restricted and there is a lot of inter dependence on central agencies, the counsel said. The Punjab and Haryana governments and the Centre did not oppose to the prayer that the cases may be handed over to the Anti-Human Trafficking unit of the CBI.

“The facts in these cases have reached a deadlock. The state agencies have expressed their inabilities and restrictions on their authority since there is a heavy inter dependence on central agencies for seeking details from the Ministry of External Affairs, Immigration and Emigration Department, the Passport Office as well as Interpol.