Human Trafficking: 2-Year-Old On Donkey Flight Not Missing, Wasn't Unaccompanied, Says Gujarat Police
The Gujarat Police has rejected reports that an unaccompanied minor on board the donkey flight to Nicaragua?that was sent back to India is missing.
Gujarat Director General of Police Vikas Sahay on Monday refuted reports that a 2-year-old boy on board the Nicaragua-bound flight had gone missing.
What Gujarat Police said
"The news report (claiming the child is untraceable) is incorrect. Our officers checked the records of passengers and found out the boy had already returned home with his parents," said Sahay.
Police further said that the boy was not unaccompanied but was travelling with his father.
The development comes as the Gujarat Police continues its probe into the Dubai-Nicaragua flight that was grounded in France and later sent back to India.
Returnees claim they were tourists
96 out of the 276 passengers who were sent back to Mumbai on the Airbus A340 on December 26 are from Gujarat.
Out of this, 60 of them returned to their native places in Gujarat last week, and many of them have been questioned by the CID-Crime Branch.
Earlier, Police had said that those questioned had maintained that they were going to Nicaragua as tourists. However, given Nicaragua's track record as a launching pad for donkey flights carrying those trying to enter the US illegally, the authorities are not buying these claims.
The statements of these passengers are being thoroughly scrutinised.
A senior official said that the CID has been verifying the documents of these individuals to confirm their authenticity and to investigate any possible forged documentation used for the journey.
The passengers' financial transactions are also examined to establish if their travel expenses align with those of regular tourists.
Punjab launches probe?
In Punjab too, where the second-highest number of passengers on the Legend Airlines flight hailed from, the local police have launched a probe.
An SIT is headed by Superintendent of Police (Investigation) Randhir Kumar and three members -- Assistance Commissioner of Police Jasroop Kaur Baath and Deputy Superintendents of Police Balkar Singh Sandhu and Dalbir Singh Sidhu has been asked to submit the final report on the human trafficking case to the competent court at the earliest.?
Mysterious flight to Nicaragua?
The flight, which originally had 303 passengers who had travelled to UAE from India in the past few months on work and tourist visas, took off from Dubai on December 21.
But the chartered flight was grounded after it landed at Vatry near Paris for a technical stopover on suspicion of human trafficking.
The flight was allowed to fly to India on December 26, with 276 passengers on board, as 25 others had sought asylum in France.
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