2 youths languish in Indonesian jail; 2 NRIs among four booked

PK Jaiswar

Amritsar, June 10

Days after two Amritsar youth landed in Indonesian jail on murder charge, the police have booked fake travel agents, including a Greece-based NRI for cheating and human trafficking.

The victims were identified as Gurmej Singh (21) of Gaggomahal village in Ajnala and Ajaypal Singh (20) of Maude village, located near Indo-Pak border in Attari.

Those booked were identified as Charanjit Singh Sodhi of New Delhi, Gurpreet Singh of Avan Lakha Singh village, now lives in Greece, Rajesh Seen and Sunny Kumar of Hoshiarpur, who reside in Indonesia and run his network from there.

This was the second case registered against them with the Amritsar rural police. Earlier, a case was registered with the Gharinda police on the complaint of Ajaypal’s father Sukchain Singh on May 23.

Sahib Singh, father of Gurmej Singh, said that duo Gurmej and Ajaypal started their journey for the US from the New Delhi airport on May 9. They reached Indonesia as ‘guided’ by Sodhi whose accomplices received the duo at an Indonesian airport from where they were taken into a room. He said they came to know that the two were tortured and forced to make calls to their family claiming they had reached safely and would start their onward journey for the US soon. Sahib Singh runs a flour mill in the village and had mortgaged his house and property for arranging money for sending his son abroad. He said he had never anticipated that his son would land in deep trouble. He said Sodhi demanded Rs 35 lakh for each child. He asked them to keep 5,000 US dollar with them during the journey. The amount was forcibly taken by Sodhi’s accomplices in Indonesia who also thrashed them.

The entire incident unfolded when they somehow managed to slip away from their clutches and reached Indonesia airport. They called their family and narrated the entire tale of woes. He said they got their return tickets arranged. But before taking the flight they were arrested by the Indonesia police in murder case on the statement of Sunny.