Bengaluru: Eight Bangaldeshi nationals were rescued by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Karnataka while busting an "international human trafficking and cheating network".
The findings in the investigation have been revealed exactly a year after the body of Surendrapal Singh from Punjab was found in Ramanagara district.
On December 6, 2017, his body was found on the roadside with his legs tied in. Investigation into the murder and a missing complaint from his native in Punjab that led his relative to Ramanagara revealed that Surendrapal was allegedly a victim of a racket which promised jobs abroad in exchange for huge sum of money.
According to the police, the accused would promise jobs and visas to the aspirants on the condition that they would transfer partial amount before they left for Canada and the remaining amount to the former once the aspirants got to the said work location.
Surendrapal Singh and two others from Punjab who were promised jobs in Canada were brought to Bengaluru on the pretext of completing certain formalities and then leaving for Canada. Once they reached Bengaluru, they were kept in illegal confinement and were threatened to make calls to their parents from an internet Canada number stating that they had reached and the remaining amount needs to be transferred to the accused.
While two of them - Gurupreeth Singh and Manpreet Singh - were released once the amount was transferred, Surendrapal is said to have been murdered after he refused to make the call to his family.
As per the terms of the gang, two lakh rupees had to be transferred before leaving for Canada and twenty lakh rupees after reaching Canada. The latter part of the agreement got many of them trusting the gang, said the police.
After the case was transferred to the CBI in July this year, the team arrested ten people from Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The arrested are Harminder Singh, Sumit Parsharam, Ashfaq Khan, Rahul Mehra, Abdul Kareem Rehaman Qureshi, Ajay Sharma, Arif Khan, Fasil and Idrish Sheriff. Six more: Pradeep, JD Patel, Sunil Kumar, Parmindar Joon, Manish and Ajaz Ahmed are yet to be arrested.
The CID raided different places in Karnataka like Bagalur, Chikkajala, Yelahanka, including hotels where 12 Bangladeshi nationals were found and rescued. The victims were lured with promises to send them to European countries in general and Poland and France in particular. They have now been sent back to their countries.
On raiding the residence of Abdul Kareem Raheman Qureshi alias Naresh Patel, who is said to be the mastermind of the case and had allegedly prepared fake documents, the CID team found documents such as Aadhaar card copies, voter IDs, passports to Canada, USA , Australia, Thailand, Indonesia along with VISA stickers pasted inside, SIM cards, mobile phones and cash worth 18.5 lakh with 526.82 gms of gold. Around 108 passports and other documents were also seized from him. Further during investigation and searches, the team seized cash of Rs 5 lakh and 5 cars which were used for transporting of victims, said a statement from the CID.
Except Idrish Sheriff, who died in a car accident, the rest of the accused are lodged in Parappana Agrahara central jail in Bengaluru in judicial custody.
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