Mumbai: The Mumbai police is planning to send a team to Delhi to further investigate the Canadian visa scam. Officials said efforts are on to trace the event managers, Sameer Agarwal and Praful, who were planning the event on the cruise and had hired artistes for the same. The Asian Age had reported on December 17 how a Mumbai-based couple Saugat and Ilika Bhattacharya had been conned and had fallen victim to a visa scam wherein their passports were forged and used by two people to make illegal entries into Canada.
The couple, whose passports were later seized by the US consulate and then forwarded to the Ministry of External Affairs, have now been banned from entering USA and their active visas cancelled.
The couple, which then approached the BKC police station to lodge an FIR and the police have lodged the same against three people. “The FIR was lodged against a Sameer Agarwal, an event manager who was planning the event on the cruise, the local agent Dinesh Khushwaha who sourced and roped in the local artists to perform on the cruise and the employee Raju of Akbar Travels who collected the passports and applied for visas,” said an officer from BKC police station.
Speaking to The Asian Age, Saugat had revealed how Sameer had contacted him via Dinesh and informed him about the performance on the cruise. He added that they had handed over the passports to Dinesh who gave it to Raju who applied for Canadian visa. “They did not even give us a rejection letter from the visa which we found suspicious,” he said.
The police meanwhile revealed that they had found some leads in Delhi and were planning to send a team to probe further. “We are also trying to trace Sameer Agarwal who was organising the event. He was accompanied by a man identified as Praful who might also be involved,” said an officer. The Delhi had also arrested one agent Paragbhai Patel who had allegedly handed over passports bearing the names of Sunaina Singh, wife of Harmeet singh of Meet Bros fame and Indian Idol Singer Vishal Kothari to a Gujarat based couple. The case came to light when the Gujarat couple was deported from Bolivia to Delhi.
