Punjab Police registers case against agent in Katara case

Kapurthala, Apr 19 (UNI) The Punjab Police are on the lookout for a travel agent or middleman who assisted Paramjit Kaur in striking a deal with suspended BJP MP Babu Bhai Katara, who was arrested yesterday at New Delhi's IGI airport while trying to take the woman and her 17-year old son Amarjit Singh to Toronto on his wife's diplomatic passport.

The police has registered a case under sections 406 and 420 of IPC against the travel agent identified as Joginder Singh, a resident of Fatehgarh Seikri village in the Bholath sub division of the district. The case was registered on the complaint of Baldev Singh, father of Paramjit Kaur and a resident of Feroze Sanghowal village.

Confirming the registeration of the case, SSP Rajiv Aggarwal today said that Bholath DSP had been asked to investigate the role of Joginder Singh. The police officer maintained that he was in contact with the Delhi police and was assisting in the Katara case investigations.

The father of 25-year old Paramjit Kaur in his complaint to the police stated that Joginder Singh had demanded Rs 30 lakh for taking his daughter and his grandson to Toronto, where his son-in-law Paramjit Singh Sodhi was residing for the past four years. In the complaint, Baldev Singh claimed that they had paid Rs 10 lakh to the travel agent as advance and the remaining amount was to be paid on his daughters arrival in Toronto. He said that Paramjit had left for New Delhi a few days back alongwith her son and husband's members, hailing from Talhi village in Hoshiarpur district.

Meanwhile, Mohinder Kaur, the mother of Paramjit maintained that their daughter, a matriculate, was innocent and her only interest was to join her husband. '' She has never stepped out of the village''.

Both Balbir Singh and Mohinder Kaur alongwith certain elders from the village are leaving for the National Capital to meet Paramjit, who has been sent in 5-day police custody.

UNI