The graph shows a sharp upswing in the number of detected cases. But the problem, explain several senior police officers, is that a case is only registered if the complainant gets duped by the travel agent. Says S K Jain, Inspector General of Police (Chandigarh), “The pattern we notice is that once a case is registered, the travel agent and the complainant often reach a compromise and we have to close the case.”

Adds Additional Director General (Crime), GD Pandey, “The large number of cases booked by us reflect a social phenomenon and the psyche of the people of Punjab. Educating the masses about the need to follow legal immigration procedures is the only thing that will stem the rot.” The police in Punjab, he says, have a fairly high conviction rate of about 60 per cent for cases involving travel agents.

The Katara case, in one sense, fits into the familiar pattern of major immigration and human trafficking scandals, where a petty “sub-agent” like Santu first scouts for clients in rural hamlets and collects a token advance. Then, a more prosperous middleman takes over (in the Katara case, the paan-shop owner, Sunder Lal Yadav). Finally, there is the facilitator, sometimes a rare VIP like the BJP MP.

Among the districts of Punjab, Jalandhar has emerged as a major hub of the racket. So much so that it has prompted the government to put up a board at the state’s Central Passport Office, listing authorised travel agencies.

But hundreds of unregistered travel agents continue to do brisk business. Police officers say that in the entire state the percentage of unregistered agents could be as high as 90 per cent. This year, 76 cases have already been registered against travel agents by the Jalandhar Police and as Superintendent of Police Satinder Singh says, “What we have noticed is that once a travel agent involved in a fake immigration case gets bail in two or three months time, he gets back to business. Also, there is always a Delhi angle to major immigration scams. While the agents lure people from Punjab, the big sharks operate from Delhi and Mumbai.”

... contd.