Trafficking: CBI questions 3 travel agents who sent 25 minors to France

NEWDELHI: The CBI on Wednesday questioned three men who had allegedly sent 25 minor children to France in an apparent case of human trafficking under the cover of rugby training in Paris.

The agency today questioned for nearly eight hours Faridabadbased Lalit David Dean and Delhi-based Sanjeev Roy and Varun Choudhary for allegedly sending these children in the age group of 13-18 years to France in 2016 in the garb of attending a training camp in Paris and left them there, CBI sources said.

The CBI through these travel agents is trying to ascertain the identities of 23 of the 25 children who are still believed to be in Europe. Two of them have managed to come back, they said.

All these 25 children were sent on fake documents making it difficult to ascertain their identities, they said.

The agency has also sent all the electronic devices recovered from the trio for forensic analysis. The sources said it had been confirmed that these 25 children had flown out of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi to Paris on February 1, 2016 in two groups with three agents but their return tickets were cancelled and they were left in France.

One among them was arrested by the French police, another approached the police. Both were deported to India and Interpol was informed about the alleged trafficking, CBI officials said.

In their visa application, the agents had shown that the 25 children were going to attend a rugby training camp in Paris, they said.

“A group of 25 students shown as students of two Kapurthala (Punjab)-based schools led by private persons (travel agents) embarked at Delhi airport for Paris to participate in a rugby training camp on the basis of alleged invitation received from the French Federation, Paris,” CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal earlier said.