Four Sri Lankan nationals, including a woman, were arrested at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here on Monday night for allegedly attempting to board a Paris-bound flight with fraudulently obtained Indian passports that were tampered with. A woman agent allegedly travelling with one of the accused is under the scanner.
The passengers were on their way to board flight to Paris via Bahrain when they were intercepted by immigration officials for verification of their travel papers. They initially identified themselves as Suman Rajesekar, Devanesan Jaya, Neelagandan Ramasany and Balraj Kumar.
Pages altered
Their passports appeared to be genuine, but their pages had been altered, re-pasted and re-stitched. Suspecting that something was amiss, the four were separately detained for questioning.
Suman, who carried a passport issued from Hyderabad in August this year, allegedly disclosed his real name as Nawali, a Sri Lankan.
The accused told the police that his papers were arranged by Vijayalatha Selvanayakam, a resident of Chennai, for Rs.3 lakh and he had to make the balance payment of Rs.8 lakh upon reaching Paris.
At Sumans instance, the police intercepted the woman at the airline counter where she was waiting for her turn to collect her boarding pass. She purportedly complained of uneasiness and was taken to a dispensary at the airport. She was referred to Fortis Hospital for further treatment.
Separate cases have been registered against the four accused. They were also interrogated by intelligence officials. While the officials suspect that Vijayalatha was also part of the same network, the role of some airline staffers is also being probed.
The Hindu