Nadiad police register cases against 6 travel agents

Nadiad, Apr 17 (UNI) Nadiad town police has registered cases against six travel agents for cheating three persons of Rs 20 lakhs.

Police Inspector KS Sawani registered cases against all the six persons yesterday under IPC Section 406, 465, 506, 120(B).

The six accused are Hemant Patel from Nadiad, who runs Expert Visa Consult here, Jitendra Dharamdas Patel and Sanjay Patel from Nadiad, Manhar Barot, Praveen Durbar from Mumbai and Zubairkhan of Fiji.

They had advertised in a local newspaper on March 25, last year that their agency can arrange for jobs in Australia, including procurement of visas.

Jijish Divyang Pathak of Vidhyanagar (Anand dist), Jatin Mansukh Marai and Vijay Shantilal Soni, both from Nadiad, responded to the advertisment and were promised jobs in Australia. A registration fee of Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 80,000 as ticket fare were collected from the three aspirants.

Later, the three were flown to Fiji instead of Australia on September 27, 2006 where Jagirkhan took away their passports and held them forcibly for three months. Zubairkhan also collected Rs 1 lakh more from the three on October 3, 2006.

Zubairkhan began demanding more money threatening them that unless they paid up, they would not see their families again.

The three complainants said that under duress, they had to ask their families to send money and nearly Rs 7 lakhs were paid to Zubairkhan before the three escaped from his clutches.

UNI