The racket was unearthed when seven women from Nepal were detained at Indira Gandhi International Airport, police said on Wednesday.
A joint venture between Air India and Singapore Airport Terminal Services (SATS), Air India SATS (AISATS) provides ground handling services across airports in India.
The detained women have been identified as Krishna Devi, 29, Uma Bhujel, 31, Sharmila Thapa, 23, Shova Kumari Pariyar, 28, Puja Tamang, 20, Malati Rai, 26, and Laxmi Rai, 41. According to police, the racket was busted after Puja, Malati and Laxmi were detained on ‘profiling basis’ by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) surveillance and intelligence staff.
“The activities of the three women was found suspicious at the international retail area of Terminal-3 at 8 pm on Monday,” said CISF spokesperson Deputy Commandant Hemendra Singh. They were scheduled to travel to Dubai by Air India (AI) flight 995 on 8 pm on Tuesday.
On being questioned, Puja, Malati and Laxmi told CISF that they had arrived from Kathmandu, but failed to produce their arrival boarding passes. The CCTV footage revealed that they had arrived at the airport from Ahmadabad by AI flight 11 and were issued boarding passes for Dubai.
“The boarding passes for Dubai were issued by Air India at international transfer counter. However, the immigration stamp on their passports of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, was found to be forged,” Singh added.
On the basis of information provided by Puja, Malati and Laxmi, CISF also intercepted Krishna, Uma, Sharmila and Shova at boarding gate area at 6 am on Tuesday. Their documents were also found to be forged. The initial probe revealed that their passport had departure stamps of Nepal, but no arrival stamps of any immigration check posts (ICPs) in India on their passports.
“The seven women were handed over to Delhi Police, and their questioning revealed the involvement of Air India SATS employees Kapil Kumar and Manish Gupta,” Singh said. Kapil, 30, was working as duty manager, while Manish, 28, was a customer service executive.
The women told police they entered India by land route and took an AI flight from Ahmadabad. “The transit boarding passes for next international flight at IGI Airport were issued on Monday at 9.30 pm,” said a source.
But as per immigration procedure, a passenger arriving by domestic flight and intended to travel abroad needs to obtain the departure immigration clearance from the departing airport. By issuing the transit boarding passes, the Air India SATS employees had facilitated the passengers to skip the immigration clearance and board the flight directly.
The tickets for the women were booked by Sky Lord Travels in central Delhi’s Connaught Place on Monday.
“Kapil and Manish issued the boarding passes without proper checking of immigration stamps requirement for departure and endorsing transit manually with a ball pen,” the source added.
Kapil and Manish have also been arrested. The women told police that the journey was arranged by an agent named Raju on the pretext of providing handsome jobs in Dubai. The women have been sent to Nari Niketan and a case under Indian Penal Code has been registered with IGI Airport police station.
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