New Delhi: Two Karnal-based ‘agents’, who were arrested months after US deportations were at their peak last year, have gotten bail after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) concluded that human trafficking charges cannot be made out against them.
This is one of just two cases that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had handed over to the NIA to probe a suspected human trafficking angle. However, the agency, after probing the case, requested the MHA to send the case back to the Haryana Police on grounds that it only merited cheating charges.
Ravi Kumar and Gopal Singh were arrested last August by the NIA, which took over the case from the Haryana Police on the orders of the MHA. Gopal was granted bail by the Ambala district court on 19 January, while Ravi secured relief on 30 January.
Earlier, the NIA had informed a special court that the offence of human trafficking was not made out against the duo and that the MHA was requested to return the case to Haryana Police.
The duo was arrested in the case in which the FIR was based on the complaint of Shubham Saini, one of the many illegal immigrants who were detained by American authorities and deported to India.
That was the time when there was din over ‘Dunki’ route (or, ‘Donkey Route’) and the NIA had stepped in against ‘agents’ who allegedly sent people abroad illegally.
As the Karnal case failed to meet the legal criteria for human trafficking, the agency had transferred it back to Haryana authorities. Subsequently, the case was transferred from the Special NIA Court in Panchkula to the Ambala district court.
In the Special NIA Court, the agency submitted in November that the two ‘agents’ were not charged under Sections 143(2) (human trafficking) and 316(2) (criminal breach of trust) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in its charge sheet.
This was a departure from the FIR registered at Ambala’s Naraingarh police station which had booked Jai Kumar, an agent from Yamuna Nagar district, under Sections 143 (2), 316 (2) and 318 (4) (cheating) of the BNS in this connection. The roles of Ravi Kumar and Gopal Singh were revealed during the NIA investigation.
Section 143(2) is a scheduled offence under the amended National Investigation Agency (Amendment) Act, 2008, empowering the agency to probe human trafficking cases, specifically those with inter-state or international ramifications.
It was this charge in the original FIR that had prompted the MHA to ask the NIA to take over the probe in the case in March last year.
The bail pleas of both accused were earlier rejected by the Special NIA court in October last year. On the other hand, the mastermind of the syndicate, Jai Kumar, has fled the country, the Haryana Police informed the court during arguments of the bail plea.
“The NIA or any investigative agency doesn’t work with the principle of securing conviction, irrespective of the facts of the case. The case was registered under scheduled offence and it was probed. However, materials gathered during the probe do not merit sections related to human trafficking,” a source familiar with the probe said, adding that the proposal was sent to the MHA for transferring the case to the Haryana Police.
The long trail
The case was registered in February last year on the complaint of Saini, who accused Jai Kumar of duping him of Rs 42 lakh on the pretext of sending him to the US.
After being introduced to Jai Kumar by an acquaintance, Saini contacted him in August 2024 and was told that the cost of sending him to the US via the ‘donkey’ route was Rs 42 lakh.
Accordingly, Jai Kumar took him to Delhi in September after collecting his passport and Rs 2 lakh. The next day, Saini was sent to Mumbai, where the agent’s aide took him to a hotel where around 15 people were already present.
In September, they were taken to Guyana and Jai Kumar’s accomplices received them and arranged their stay for nearly 25 days, Saini said in his complaint. He alleged he was given no food and water, and was harassed and threatened when he wanted to call his parents. Meanwhile, Jai Kumar allegedly took another Rs 39.5 lakh from Saini’s parents.
From Guyana, Saini alleged, the group was sent to Brazil, where they spent another 25 days. The ‘Dunki’ route continued from Brazil to Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Panama, where Saini was allegedly taken to a house by Jai Kumar’s accomplice and tortured.
Next, he was taken to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and finally to Mexico before being pushed along with others to the US on 24 January last year. But shortly after entering the US, he was arrested and sent to India.
In its probe, the NIA found that Ravi and Gopal were directly involved in arranging travel and stay of the group, including Saini and Harsh, whose family was also threatened to cough up money.
The agency allegedly found that Ravi and Gopal played a central role in managing hotel and flight bookings for the syndicate run by Jai Kumar, along with managing expenses of the group during their illegal travel to the US.
For instance, the NIA charge sheet mentioned that Ravi transferred Rs 50,000 to Gopal, who then transferred the amount to a syndicate member for the bookings in Mumbai.
The trio of Ravi Kumar, Gopal Singh and Jai Kumar were charged under Sections 61(2) (criminal conspiracy), 127(2) (wrongful confinement), 308(5) (extortion by putting any person in fear of death or of grievous hurt), 318(4) (cheating), 351(2) & (3) (criminal intimidation) and 238(b) (destruction of evidence) of the BNS in the NIA charge sheet.
Sections 143(2) and 316(2) (criminal breach of trust) of the BNS were dropped by the NIA.
In November, NIA special public prosecutor Gagandeep Wasu informed the special court that the agency had written to the MHA seeking its nod to transfer the case back to the Haryana Police. Based on the NIA’s findings and recommendations, the MHA transferred the case to the Haryana Police.
After the cases were transferred to the Ambala district court, Gopal Singh’s counsel Sudhir Rana argued that the charge sheet had already been produced before the court and that there were no further recoveries or statements to be recorded from his client. Subsequently, Gopal Singh and Ravi Kumar were granted bail.
(Edited by Tony Rai)