Former MLA of Sangareddy, T. Jayaprakash Reddy alias Jagga Reddy, who was detained and questioned regarding human trafficking charges by Hyderabad police on Monday, was arrested on Tuesday.

A case of human trafficking was registered against him by Market police the previous day after receiving reliable information, North Zone DCP B. Sumathi said at a press conference. Mr. Reddy obtained a passport for himself and three of his family members in 2004. He was an MLA from TRS then. TRS was an opposition party agitating for a separate Telangana State in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh at that time.

Though the passports were taken in the names of his wife Nirmala, daughter Jayalaxmi and son Bharath Sai Reddy, he affixed photographs of three others on them. Subsequently, he obtained U.S. visas for those three and himself, police said.

“By accompanying them claiming as his family members, Mr. Reddy illegally transported them to America for monetary benefits,” Ms. Sumathi said at a press conference. The DCP said that Mr. Reddy had collected ₹15 lakh through a broker called Madhu.

This amount was in addition to the expenditure incurred for transporting them to America. The accused flew to New York along with his friend Jetti Kusum Kumar and three other persons.

“After spending few days in New York, Reddy returned to Hyderabad with his friend,” the DCP said. Thus, he cheated the officials of the Passport Office and the US Consulate by using his official position as MLA then, Ms. Sumathi said.

The former MLA was presented before the local magistrate on Tuesday. A resident of Sangareddy, he started his political career with Bharatiya Janata Party as councillor of the local municipality.

He joined TRS and got elected as the MLA from Sangareddy in 2004. Due to differences with TRS supremo K. Chandrasekhara Rao (now caretaker Chief Minister of Telangana), he quit the party and joined Congress. In 2009, he won the same Assembly seat on a Congress ticket.

In the first Assembly elections for Telangana, he contested on a Congress ticket but lost to the TRS candidate.