Guj: Cops rescue 15 persons held hostage for extortion by gang of illegal immigration agents

Ahmedabad: Police on Sunday said they have rescued from Delhi 15 residents of Gujarat, including a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, whom a gang of illegal immigration agents had allegedly kidnapped, held hostage and tortured over the past few months for extorting money from their families on the pretext of sending them abroad.

Gujarat police have arrested one such agent so far in this connection, an official said.

”Fifteen people, including a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, were held hostage and tortured by the gang that made several calls to their family members in Gujarat to extort money for sending them abroad. But all of the victims were rescued from Delhi with the help of the special cell of the national capital police, and brought to Gujarat,” Gandhinagar Superintendent of Police Mayur Chavda said.

The victims had left Gujarat to go abroad during different periods since November last year. The gang members first took them to Mumbai, and from there to West Bengal, where they were held hostage, tortured and a huge amount of money was extorted from their family members to send them abroad, he said.

From West Bengal, these people were taken to Delhi one by one after the gang received the money demanded from their family members, Chavda told reporters, adding that the police are investigating a human trafficking angle in the case as the agents planned to sell a five-year-old girl in Bangladesh in case they failed to get money.

Police came to know about these people while investigating a case of a couple from Mansa in Gandhinagar district, who had left their home to go abroad in December for a job, but had gone untraceable after that, the SP said. ”Our priority was to locate the couple, and the matter was entrusted to the local crime branch. Through technical surveillance and intelligence input, we learnt that have been held hostage by an entire gang,” he said.

After learning about this, a team of the crime branch on Saturday left for Delhi, and another for West Bengal to trace the couple, Chavda said. ”After tracing the couple, it was learnt that 15 people have fallen victim to the gang since November last year. They were taken to Mumbai from Gujarat, and from there to West Bengal,” he said.

They were kidnapped, held hostage and tortured in West Bengal. From there, they made extortion calls to their family members for money. After receiving the money, they would take the victims to Delhi one by one at different times, Chavda added.

”We took the help of a special cell of Delhi police. We learnt that 15 people were held hostage by the gang, including a baby, senior citizens, men and women. Eight of them were brought here by train, and the remaining persons will be brought here via air route,” he said.

”The victims are psychologically, physically and economically in a very disturbed state,” he said, adding that further investigation was underway.