A woman from Ludhiana and her aides allegedly abducted and assaulted a travel agent after her nephew was deported from an airport in Russa. The woman was furious when she got to know that she had been allegedly cheated by the agent who had sent her nephew to Russia on a visa.
The accused reportedly lured the agent on the pretext of discussing a visa requirement for another person, but instead abducted him, and thrashed him after taking him to a town named Mullanpur. There, the woman and her aides also demanded a refund of ₹3 lakh, which her nephew had paid to the agent, Hindustan Times reported.
The accused have been identified as Jasveer Kaur, and her aides were Raju, Bunty Gurbaz Singh, Kamaljit Kaur, and Meva Singh, who are all residents of Mullanpur.
According to the police, Lovinder Singh, the travel agent from Bapu Market in Lohara, arranged a Russian visa for Jasveer Kaur’s nephew Amritpal Singh. He charged ₹3 lakh for visa processing from Amritpal, following which he flew to Russia. Upon arrival at the Russian airport, Singh was deported to India, which started a dispute over the money paid for the visa, HT reported.
Police told HT that Jasveer Kaur hatched a conspiracy with her aides to recover the money, and called Lovinder Singh near the Verka Milk Plant on Ferozepur Road. She claimed that her husband wanted to go abroad, for which she needed visa assistance. However, when the agent arrived, he was allegedly forcibly abducted, taken to Mullanpur, and assaulted. There they even demanded that he return the money he had charged for the visa.
Sarabha Nagar SHO Inspector Neeraj Chaudhary stated that Lovinder Singh claimed Amritpal Singh was not deported but returned to India on his own, while the latter maintained the Russian airport authorities deported him. This eventually led to the refund demand.
The travel agent was only allowed to leave after a mutual acquaintance assured the kidnappers that their money would be returned. Following this, the agent was released, following which he filed a complaint with the Sarabha Nagar police. An FIR has been filed against the accused under Sections 140(3) (kidnapping), 191(3) (rioting with deadly weapons), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy), and 190 (unlawful assembly), the report said.
Police have launched a hunt to arrest the accused.
