mumbai

Updated: Mar 04, 2019 15:21 IST

Two Mumbai policemen posted at the international airport were recently sacked after they were allegedly found involved in a human trafficking racket.

According to the police, 51 people were trafficked out of India between June 2015 and May 2017 using forged passports and visas. The two accused policemen had connived with travel agents, key players of the racket, to clear immigration checks for at least 43 people, police said.

Mumbai Police special branch-II constables Sachin Deshpande and Rajesh Godse, posted with the immigration department on deputation, were found guilty of playing a key role in a human trafficking racket during a departmental inquiry and were hence sacked from the police department under section 3 of Mumbai Police Act 1956 (Punishment & Appeal), a police officer said.

The involvement of the policemen came to the fore, after Komal Dabgar, 27, was deported from Canada on May 8, 2017 when immigration officials at Vancouver discovered she had a forged passport.

A departmental inquiry later revealed that Deshpande and Godse were on immigration check duty on May 5, 2017, when Dabgar took the flight to Canada. “The two police constables did not do a mandatory check and cleared Dabgar’s immigration,” said an officer.

Further investigations revealed that similar clearances were done by the two from June 22, 2015 to May 5, 2017 for as many as 43 people who illegally travelled to Western and European countries. Most of them were young girls and boys. There is a possibility that among these immigrants, some anti-national elements or people linked to terrorist organisations may have travelled abroad. The racket operated in an organised manner, the police officer added.