By IANS
Jalandhar : The Punjab police Thursday raided the premises of a travel and foreign placement agency here and recovered 616 passports and over Rs.2.8 million from its office.
The raid was conducted in the office of Shivam Travels Jalandhar and till Thursday evening the police had not registered any case as the agent’s credentials are still being verified, a senior police official said.
Police detained one person from the agency for questioning but no arrests were made.
“We are trying to confirm from emigration officials whether the travel agency can keep so many passports. The matter is still under investigation,” a police official said.
The passports and money had apparently been taken by the travel agency to send youth from Punjab to Dubai for employment.
Punjab has high incidence of immigration frauds (called ‘kabootarbaazi’) with travel and placement agents duping scores in the name of sending them to other countries for well-paid jobs.
Hundreds of youths have been duped by unscrupulous travel agents in recent years with many of them being dumped in African and central Asian countries.