France plane row: Indian police form teams to bust illegal immigration network

The police in the Indian state of Gujarat have formed teams to bust a suspected illegal immigration network involving "agents" and will coordinate with passengers of the plane that landed in Mumbai from France on Tuesday, a senior officer said. He said many passengers hail from Gujarat.

The plane, an Airbus A340, carrying 276 passengers, mostly Indians, was grounded in France for four days over suspected human trafficking. It landed in Mumbai in the early hours on Tuesday, an official said. Speaking about the incident, Superintendent of Police, CID (Crime) Sanjay Kharat said, "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 the promises made to them by these agents."

He added that most of the passengers present on the chartered plane, which had returned from France, were from districts of Patan, Mehsana, Banaskantha and Anand.

"Police will coordinate with the passengers when they reach Gujarat from Mumbai to find out the agents and agencies involved and whether documents provided to them to migrate to the US and other countries were forged," Kharat said.

The SP said that the police officials will also make efforts to learn about the number of people who have flown abroad in a similar way as well as those who have been seeking to travel in this manner.

He added that the CID so far has "raw information" about the agents who were involved in sending the Indians abroad and will try to gather more information by questioning the concerned passengers.

Kharat said that different agents, who have been involved in illegal immigration work, have been working in tandem. "The agents working at the village and district levels are small players controlled by the kingpin who works at the international level," he said.

He said that the investigation will be carried out by the Gujarat police and they will try to understand how the agents operate.

"Different agencies use different modus operandi based on the requirement of persons seeking to migrate like whether they require forged documents etc., and rates are fixed accordingly," said the SP, further stating that they will question the victims and the police will try to reach the kingpin.

Romanian charter company Legend Airlines was operating the charter flight - which was bound for Nicaragua from Dubai - and had landed at Vatry, close to Paris, for a technical stopover when it was detained by the French police.

Watch:India-France row: Gujarat police forms teams to probe suspected 'illegal migration'

A judicial investigation was launched by the French authorities into the purpose and conditions of the trip. Meanwhile, a unit, which specialises in organised crime investigation, suspected human trafficking.

'Most fliers had return tickets', says lawyer

Meanwhile, the lawyer of the airline Liliana Bakayoko, while speaking to NDTV on Tuesday (Dec 26), said, "I am the lawyer of the company. My colleagues who defended the passengers before the judge told the media that the passengers they defended all had return tickets. They had hotel reservations and return tickets... I don't know for when, actually. But not for the next day."

While speaking about reports suggesting that only 12 of the 303 passengers had a return ticket, the lawyer said, "The company's aeroplane was hired by a client, which is a foreign company, to perform such flights. According to my colleagues in France, all the passengers they defended, almost all of them had return tickets and hotel reservations. But it is true that only three passengers were heard by the judge."

(With inputs from agencies)