Gurugram: To keep a check on travel agents who dupe people into illegal immigration, the Haryana government will introduce a bill in the upcoming budget session of the assembly beginning on 20 February.
The draft of the bill — Haryana Registration and Regulation of Travel Agents Bill, 2024 — was approved by the state cabinet Tuesday.
The bill mandates compulsory registration of travel agents and provides for stern punishment of imprisonment up to 10 years, a fine of Rs 2 to 5 lakh, and attachment of properties for the offence of human trafficking – sending people abroad on fake documents, also called through ‘donkey’ route in local parlance.
As recently as December last year, illegal immigration from Haryana made the news when French officials intercepted a Nicaragua-bound flight which had Indians who were allegedly planning to reach the US via the ‘donkey route’.
Popularly called ‘Kabootarbazi’ (the practice of fraudulently sending people abroad), the word gained currency when singer Daler Mehndi was booked for cheating several people in exchange of money to facilitate their entry to the US. Mehndi was sentenced to two-year imprisonment by a Patiala court in March 2018, but the Punjab and Haryana High Court suspended the jail term in September 2022.
Contacted by The Print, Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij confirmed that the cabinet has given its approval to the draft bill. “Now, this bill will be passed by the state assembly during its budget session and the government will go ahead with making rules for its implementation,” he told ThePrint.
Vij explained that every time at his Janata Darbars inAmbala, he receives several complaints of people who have been duped by travel agents
In most of these cases, he said, travel agents charge as much as Rs.50 lakh to send people to the US or Europe but they eventually land in trouble in some other countries as the agents use illegal means.
“In June 2020, I constituted an SIT under then IG Bharti Arora to deal with immigration frauds. Later, when she left the job after seeking voluntary retirement on December 1, 2021, the charge was handed over to Panchkula police commissioner Sibas Kabiraj. The SIT has, so far, registered 1,008 cases of immigration fraud and arrested 662 people. An amount of Rs 4.75 crore has also been recovered,” Vij said, informing about the gravity of the problem in Haryana.
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Cabinet decision
Earlier on Tuesday, Haryana education minister Kanwar Pal informed media persons that the bill makes it mandatory for those interested in undertaking the profession of a travel agent to obtain a registration certificate.
Under the provisions of the bill, police verification of the applicants and of their documents will be made before the certificate is handed out. The registration certificate will have a three-year validity after which the travel agent will have to apply again.
Apart from this, opening a new office or branch will also require obtaining a fresh registration certificate.
The minister said that the registration certificate will be cancelled in case the agent is found indulging in criminal activities, or violates the terms of certificate or becomes insolvent.
The bill also provides that the court can also order confiscation of the illegally acquired properties of the travel agents while deciding cases against them.
“The Haryana Government is committed to the protection of people from falling victim to illegal immigration scams. The Bill is aimed at a proactive approach for regulating travel agents, ensuring transparency, legality, and accountability in immigration-related services,” Pal said.
Haryana’s brush with illegal immigration
There has been a string of episodes in the last year itself when people of Haryana were found to take help of dubious agents for realising their dream of foreign jobs.
In December last year, an aircraft bound for Nicaragua with 303 passengers on board was grounded in France for human trafficking. The aircraft returned to Mumbai on 26 December. Of those who returned to India, 66 were from Gujarat, 150 from Punjab and 25 from Haryana.
These people were being sent to the US through Nicaragua through the “donkey” route.
In September, the police arrested a man posing as Haryana chief secretary who had duped several people of Rs 35 crore on the promise of sending them abroad.
Similarly, 18 men from Haryana and Punjab who were assured entry to Italy were sent to Libya by unscrupulous agents in February. Madan Lal, the travel agent, had allegedly charged Rs 30 lakh to 35 lakh from each of the families. In Libya, they were stripped, blindfolded, and sold to their masters after snatching their passports.
A youth from Haryana died under mysterious circumstances in Libya. The others spent 3 months in Tripoli jail in Libya before they got fresh passports and brought back to India.
In May last year, Australian High Commissioner Barry O’Farrell said that an uptick in fraudulent applications had forced Australian universities to bar applicants from Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, as well as Jammu and Kashmir.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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