CBI case against 3 agents for trafficking 25 minors from Punjab to France

The accused had collected Rs 25 lakh to Rs 30 lakh from the parents and sent the students to France on the pretext of rugby training

The CBI on Friday said it has busted a human trafficking racket and booked three persons on charges of sending 23 teenaged students to France in 2016 for "a rugby training camp".

The CBI on Friday also conducted searches at four places in Delhi which resulted recovery of incriminating documents and other articles from the premises of accused persons - Lalit David Dean, Sanjeev Raj and Varun Choudhary.

An FIR was registered on Thursday against Dean, Raj and Choudhary, said a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) official, adding "the accused had collected Rs 25 lakh to Rs 30 lakh from the parents and sent the students, aged between 13-18 years, to France on the pretext of rugby training".

"After the students reached France in February 2016, they were dumped in a gurudwara."

The accused persons, belonging to Delhi and Faridabad (Haryana), have been booked under chages of criminal conspiracy, cheating, trafficking of persons and forgery of Indian Penal Code.

"It was alleged that on February 1, 2016, a group of 25 students of two Kapurthala (Punjab) based schools led by the accused persons embarked at Delhi airport to participate in International rugby training camp in Paris on the basis of alleged invitation received from French Federation, Paris.

"All of them visited Paris and thereafter, the 25 students also attended a rugby training camp at Paris for about a week.

It was also alleged that the visa in respect of said students were obtained from French Embassy at Delhi on the basis of forged and fabricated documents. All the 25 were left in Paris and their return tickets were got cancelled by accused but two boys somehow managed to come back before their tickets had been cancelled.

"One boy was even caught by French police after which Interpol was informed and then the CBI started investigation," the CBI official added.

CBI sources say that most of the trafficked students are from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.