The surrender of Mohammad Mazharuddin Rasheed, alleged mastermind in the human trafficking scam, has opened a can of worms: he has named several MPs and MLAs from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh whom he claimed to have drawn or tried to draw into the business of taking people abroad illegally.

Rasheed and his aide, ex-councillor Muzaffar Ali, were remanded in judicial custody today.

In his six-page confession, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, Rasheed says that among those he paid in such deals are former TRS MP A Narendra, BSP MP Mohammad Tahir Khan from Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party MP Balchander Yadav, TRS MPs Madhusudan Reddy and Ravindra Naik, and MLAs Kasipeta Lingaiah, Soyam Babu Rao, and Ramalinga Reddy. He says there are some more MPs and MLAs he dealt with, but doesn’t remember their names.

More names could emerge, with sources saying that three of the seven passports recovered from Rasheed’s house are of Congress legislators from Andhra Pradesh.

Rasheed says in the confession that the first MP he worked with was A Narendra, to whom he was introduced by one Mazherbhai.

“He (Mazherbhai) introduced me to A Narendra and I introduced the concept of human trafficking by getting the recommendation letter from MLA/MP and obtained visas to USA in the names of wife and children of said MLP MP and he agreed to it and gave me three recommendation letters and his original passport,” he says in the confession.

He says he gave the passport to one Shakeel, who introduced him to this business. Shakeel asked him to wait three months, and gave it to one Afum J Yousef, who had “certain Gujarati persons” sent abroad on the passport. Later, Yousef too went to the US.

... contd.