The VIP Smugglers

Investigations into the case involving BJP MP Babubhai Katara point to a nationwide,well-organised racket where those with diplomatic access are lured into human trafficking by the large sums of money on offer

PICTURE SPEAK

CAUGHT RED-HANDED: Katara and Kaur after their arrest in Delhi The trafficking by mps threatens to expose a wider network and becomes a diplomatic embarrassment

Katara was ferrying two illegal migrants from Punjab—Paramjeet Kaur, 26, and Amarjeet, 17—into Canada, having accepted a sum of Rs 30 lakh for the job. Charged with impersonation, forgery and cheating, he now joins a burgeoning gallery of rogue-MPs who have been netted for abuse of privilege, ranging from cash for questions to misusing government funds, in the past two years. Katara, since suspended by the BJP, arrived at the airport just a half hour before the scheduled departure with the two wannabe emigrants. His flunkey Rajendra Kumar Gampa led the way, wielding three passports including two red diplomatic passports belonging to the MP and his wife, and got the visas stamped.

ERRANT MPS OF CURRENT LOK SABHA

MPLAD CONTROVERSY: 1. CHURCHIL ALEMAO, Congress 2. FAGAN SINGH KULASTE, BJP 3. RAMSWAROOP KOLI, BJP 4. PARAS NATH YADAV, Samajwadi Party 5. CHANDRAPRATAP SINGH, BJP CASH FOR QUERY: 1. RAJA RAM PAL, BSP 2. ANNA M.K. PATIL, BJP 3. NARENDRA KUSHWAHA, BSP 4. Y.G. MAHAJAN, BJP 5. MANOJ KUMAR, RJD 6. LAL CHANDRA, BSP 7. PRADEEP GANDHI, BJP 8. RAMSEVAK SINGH, Congress 9. CHHATRAPAL S. LODHA, BJP 10. SURESH CHANDEL, BJP 11. CHANDRA PRATAP SINGH, BJP

The MP had made two previous successful trips to the UK and Canada in the past two years, ostensibly using the same modus operandi and ferrying an unspecified number of emigrants. While the police are not ruling out the complicity of immigration officials, they say the MP’s VIP-in-a-hurry ploy was part of an elaborate game plan to hoodwink emigration. Raids at Katara’s South Avenue residence yielded 12 passports used to send people out of the country illegally. After dropping off his human cargo, Katara would return alone with his wife’s and son’s passports, on which arrival stamps would be forged. Rajesh’s passport has a forged immigration stamp dated December 18, 2006, to show he had returned from the UK.

The big unanswered question is whether this racket was only the tip of the iceberg. Were more MPs involved? And for how long had this been going on? Preliminary investigations suggest Katara was not alone in using his diplomatic licence to drive on the wrong side of the law. Sunderlal Yadav, one of his accomplices, has said that at least four other MPs were involved in the human trafficking ring. He claims to have introduced BSP MP Mohammad Tahir Khan and BJP MP Ramswaroop Koli to Rashid, a travel agent from Hyderabad. Already there are indications that the operation pre-dated the one by Katara. One of the MPs, Ram Awadh, also named in the racket, passed away some years ago.

Notices served to the MPs by the Delhi Police, seeking reasons for and details of their foreign travel and their association with travel agents, elicited evasive replies, suggesting the MPs are buying time and seeking legal counsel. Mitrasen Yadav did not respond, while Ashok Kumar Rawat and Khan said they were away campaigning for elections in Uttar Pradesh, and Koli said he was away in his hometown.

Katara’s case, meanwhile, is as serious as that of a Colombian drug cartel which was caught a few years ago trying to procure a Russian submarine to smuggle cocaine into the US. The MP’s submarine was the diplomatic passport issued under the seal of the President of India, due to which Katara and his family did not have to appear before the Canadian High Commission for visas. A diplomatic passport entitles the holder to VIP access and separate facilitation counters at foreign airports and, in a loophole Katara seemed to have exploited, does not involve matching the holders with the passport.

RISE AND FALL

On the Wrong Side of Right   PICTURE SPEAK SERIAL MISUSE: Katara ferried people illegally to the UK and Canada Babubhai Katara was just another Class III employee in the Gujarat State Land Development Corporation when something happened that changed his life forever. It was some time in the early 1990s and the Hindutva movement was at its peak, when one day Katara stopped a truck belonging to a Muslim transporter that was being used for carting cows and bullocks, presumably for slaughter. A dacoity case was slapped against him, but the architects of Hindutva embraced him. In the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP was scouting for a winning candidate for the Dohad seat, it didn’t have to look beyond Katara, who won by over 12,000 votes against Somjibhai Damor, a seven-time Congress MP, and was instantly seen as a giant killer. He was also seen as a go-getter for whom the end mattered more than the means. He reportedly played a major role in fanning the Hindutva fire following the 2002 train attack in Godhra. One of his sons was booked in two incidents of communal rioting in the area and was arrested last year following a Supreme Court directive. But for Katara, all this was a small price to pay. The highly polarised communal atmosphere ensured his entry into the Lok Sabha for the second time. There is apprehension in the BJP about the effect of the Katara scam on the coming Assembly elections. The Congress has already latched on to it to mock the BJP’s “chaal, charitra, chehera” slogan. As Arjun Modhwavvdia, leader of the Congress in the Vidhan Sabha, put it, “The Katara incident has once again exposed the true face of the BJP. Advani’s repeated talk of chaal and charitra is just a sham.” The Gujarat BJP is too stunned to react. “The law will take its own course,” is the short and evasive reply which still leaves unanswered several questions. -By Uday Mahurkar

The VIP route has been explored in the past. Former Akali minister Sohan Singh Thandal accompanied a few youth, purportedly ‘raagi’ singers, who later disappeared after arriving in Canada. Senior Congress leader and former deputy chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal allegedly recommended a US visa to a relative who had suppressed certain facts and was later denied a visa. No cases were registered against Thandal or Bhattal, but they were blacklisted by the countries concerned.

More recently, traffickers have been scouting safer options to smuggle human cargo and are now using a willing MP shielded by a diplomatic passport as a courier for this pipeline. In the Katara story Sandhu and Joginder Singh, travel agents from Punjab, contacted Gampa, a small-time businessman from Hyderabad who worked as Katara’s personal assistant, and Yadav, a pan shop owner-turned-travel agent who lived near Katara’s residence.

OTHERS IN TROUBLE Sunderlal Yadav has named four other MPs involved in the scam:

1. MOHAMMAD TAHIR KHAN, BSP The MP from Sultanpur has not answered police summons. 2. ASHOK KUMAR RAWAT, BSP: First-time MP from Misrikh. So far, has not answered summons. 3. MITRASEN YADAV, BSP: MP from Faizabad, convicted earlier for murder but pardoned by President. 4. RAMSWAROOP KOLI, BJP: First-time MP from Bayana, has ignored police notice so far.

Hailing from the Feroze Sanghowal village of Kapurthala district, Kaur was married to US-based Paramjeet Singh four years ago. For reasons not clear yet, she was unable to join her husband, so her in-laws chose to send her abroad illegally. “Joginder Singh told us that he could facilitate her travel if we paid him a few lakh rupees. We did not know he was using fraudulent means ,” says Kaur’s mother Mohinder. Sandhu escorted Kaur to Delhi and introduced her to Gampa. Yadav took money from the agents, deducted his cut and passed it on to Katara. Amarjeet (not related to Kaur), who was impersonating Katara’s son Rajesh, hails from Hoshiarpur. His father paid another travel agent, Santu Masih, an unspecified amount to send him to Canada.

Gampa’s sister, Kiran Dhar, a beautician pursuing a diploma in travel and tourism, was entrusted with the paperwork. She would not only type letters for the clients’ visa proposals and complete all the documentation, but also coach them in the finer nuances of not arousing suspicion. Kaur was taught to wear a Gujarati sari, with the pallu draped over the right shoulder.

What is of immediate concern is the diplomatic embarrassment and fallout. Meant for a privileged few, diplomatic passports open visa doors easily, but now their credibility is being questioned as some lawmakers have put their privileges for sale. Even before the Katara immigration scam came to light, there were cases of misuse of diplomatic passports by lawmakers and officials which were not taken seriously and lie buried in the files of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Cases were filed in a local police station against some MPs from south India for misuse of passports few years back, but the matter was not followed up. Last year, the Canadian High Commission in Delhi detected a fraud in which two MPs had tampered with their family’s passports. The Commission made a formal complaint to the MEA, following which the Ministry wrote to the Parliament Secretariat, but no action was taken. MEA officials say they cannot do much, as it is the Parliament that authorises diplomatic passports.

An Indian ambassador who was a political appointee from Punjab was found misusing his diplomatic passport even after his term had come to an end. The ambassador was detained in London and a detailed complaint was filed, in spite of which he has been reappointed as the ambassador to an African country. While the ministry does not want to comment on these cases, Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed says about the Katara scam, “We have forwarded the appropriate papers to the Parliament Secretariat. We issue visa notes and diplomatic passports to MPs based on recommendation from Parliament.”

According to the passport manual, diplomatic passports are only issued to Union ministers and their spouses, diplomats, high dignitaries in the protocol list and officials posted with the MEA, besides Indian diplomats and their families. Since the last decade, MPs of both Houses of Parliament, have also been entitled to red passports. Since all such officials above the rank of attaches are allowed to hold diplomatic passports for the tenure of their postings abroad and for official trips, the number of diplomatic passport holders is close to 25,000.

The passports are meant to be used only for official trips. For personal trips, regular passports must be used. However, as the Katara case shows, the rule is rarely followed. Besides, many industrialists, former MPs and political functionaries have managed to get diplomatic passports issued out of the discretionary quota of the MEA. There is already a long-standing demand by state legislators to give them diplomatic passports as well, but the Government is yet to take a view on it.

With the scam being unearthed, the MEA is expected to tighten the norms for diplomatic passports and hasten the process of biometric passports with extra security features such as iris scan later this year, which will make them tamper-proof. Instructions have also been given not to issue notes verbales to foreign missions without verification. “We have been waiving personal interviews for diplomatic passport holders as a matter of courtesy, but we have to change that,” remarks a European diplomat. Illegal trafficking has already prompted many countries to put India on the immigration watch list and this scam will only make things worse. South Block sources say the Katara scam has led to a big embarrassment for India, and fear foreign governments may tighten visa procedures citing this case.

While the Government will have to ensure that diplomatic passports are only issued for a specific duration for official purposes, already many are demanding that these privileges be withdrawn. “Big democracies like the US, the UK and Australia don’t give diplomatic passports to their lawmakers, so why should India do it?” asks J.C. Sharma, former secretary of the Passports Division in the MEA. The writing seems clear: Indian diplomatic passports now stand devalued. The meeting to be convened by the Lok Sabha speaker with leaders of all parties next week may find some way of ensuring that Katara and his ilk can no longer operate with immunity, but with the issue already set to become an electoral weapon for the Congress, it may become more of a political football than a disgraceful scam involving elected representatives of the country.

-with Ramesh Vinayak and Manoj Verma

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