France plane row: Gujarat police grill 20 people who were on Nicaragua-bound flight

Police authorities from India’s western state of Gujarat grilled at least20 passengers who were on the Nicaragua-bound flight in France, after the plane with over 300 on board was grounded over suspicions of human trafficking following a tip off.

The interrogation was done to find out if some sort of illegal immigration network was running, media reports said citing a senior official.

This comes after the French court finally allowed the passengers to leave France four days, following which the Nicaragua-bound aircraft, an Airbus A340, landed in Mumbai on December 26.

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The plane landed in Mumbai had a total of 276 passengers onboard. Reports citing a top state Crime Investigation Department (CID) official, said that at least 60 out of the total passengers were from Gujarat. These people have already arrived in their native state and their interrogation is undergoing.

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Notably, the police authorities are trying to find out if these people boarded a 'donkey flight' to seek entry into the US and if they aspired to do that after reaching Latin America.

"They were sent back from France. There was a rumour they had planned to enter the US illegally after landing in Nicaragua. In their statements, they told us they were going there as tourists. We are going into the details to find out who were the agents behind their trip," S P Rajkumar, Additional Director General of Police, CID - Crime and Railways, reportedly said.

The top IPS officer said,"We are verifying their documents to ascertain whether they used genuine or forged documents to proceed to Central America. We will also check their financial transactions because, ideally, they should not have paid more if they were going there as normal tourists and not with any other intention."

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"Though we have started questioning, no one is divulging facts. They claim they went there as tourists. We are investigating the case from all angles," he added.

Four teams formed

CID has already created a total of four teamsto probe the matter, as per Superintendent of Police, CID (Crime), Sanjay Kharat.

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"The CID (crime) wants to take action against agents who had promised help to the victims to enter the US and other countries (illegally). We have formed four teams which will get information from the victims regarding promises made to them by these agents," hereportedly said.

(With inputs from agencies)