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This is an archive article published on July 7, 2010

27 people arrested with fake documents at airport

Kingfisher and Jet Airways call centres received calls that several people were to board two flights to Dubai with fake visas.

Twenty-seven people,including a Bangladeshi,were formally arrested on Wednesday after they were caught at the airport here with fake documents while trying to fly to Dubai with police suspecting that a “rival visaon Tuesday last evening after Kingfisher and Jet Airways call centres received calls from anonymous persons that these people were to board two flights to Dubai with fake visas. The callers also claimed that the passengers may try to “hijack” the flights.

Police suspect that the calls were made by people belonging to a rival agency dealing in fake visas because they lost business.

A case has been registered against the 27 people for cheating and forgery. One of them is a Bangladeshi while the others are from Punjab and West Bengal,a senior police official said.

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The call to Jet Airways was made from Dubai and the caller had identified himself as Abhishek. Both the callers were well versed with how security agencies at the airport function. They wanted to be sure that these people are caught and they also gave a hijack threat,the official said.

Normally such calls are made to the immigration officials,they said,pointing out that this time the callers contacted the call centres. The callers also alleged that the racket was hand-in-glove with the immigration officials.

They made a hijack threat so that all agencies would get involved in it,the official said.

“It appeared that the callers were well-versed in the operations at the airport and how security drills were conducted. They wanted these people to be caught and for that used all possible ways,” the official said.

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All those arrested were from the economically weaker sections of the society who claimed that they had paid around Rs 60,000 to agents to get visas for Dubai where they were to get jobs,the sources said.

The Jet Airways call centre in Delhi received the call at around 2 pm yesterday in which the caller claimed that 15 people were planning to fly to Dubai with fake visas and they might “hijack” the flight,the sources said.

The Kingfisher call centre in Pune received the call in which the caller claimed that 12 passengers with fake visas will be flying to Dubai,they said.

Soon after the calls were received,three teams of CISF personnel were deployed in the international terminal to catch them and airline staff were briefed and provided with the PNR numbers of the suspect travellers.

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“They were allowed to enter the airport and as soon as they approached the staff at the airline counters and produced their tickets,they were apprehended,” a senior security official had said.

The official said the security personnel at the gates were also briefed about their PNR numbers. They identified the suspects and signalled to personnel who were inside the airport. Both Jet and Kingfisher have handed over the recordings of the telephone calls they received to the security agencies.

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