Turbulence for 72 airhostesses, under probe

Mumbai: The Mumbai police is keeping a watch on 72 airhostesses of various airlines on suspicion that they are involved in human trafficking.

The police started a wider probe after arresting Aliya Abbas Rizvi, a 24-year-old airhostess with Jet Airways, for allegedly forging a marriage certificate and claiming in her visa application that businessman Rajesh Trivedi was her husband—a ploy to take him to the US.

The couple was caught before they could fly the coop, but Aliyah may just be the tip of an immigration iceberg. “We have have got a list of 72 airhostess and we are scrutinising their movements,” says Rakesh Maria, Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime.

Three men who allegedly paid Trivedi Rs 20 lakh to Trivedi for taking them to the US have been arrested too. Rizvi allegedly got Rs 1.8 lakh as commission from this money. This incident follows a slew of other cases of human trafficking.

In November, an Army jawan Suresh Babu was caught forging official passports. He allegdly sold them for 50,000 rupees each. The Central Bureau of Investigation is probing that case.

In April, BJP MP Babubhai Katara was arrested at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on charges of illegally taking a woman to Canada on his wife's passport. Katara is currently in jail.

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